Aisle 34 & 1/4: The Bargin Movie Shelf
So I had my first class on Freakshows, interesting stuff. Now I'm not going to go through everything that we talked about, actually I'm not going to touch on a single thing discussed in class. What I want to get down is mearly an idea for some future work. So with that preamble out of the way...
Horror films. We all know I like them right? Right. I am thinking about re-examining how we view/create the villians in horror films. Over the past century there have been a number of horror films and many, many different types of monsters. Some have been serial killers who were twisted from the inside by a multitude of affects. Others were unearthly, or mythic, creatures that when we examin them we can see archetypes that resemble the very core of the human condition. Then there are the villians who express are fear and repulsion to those that are different from us. The "freaks" of nature that go forth and create a world of pain for unsuspecting teenagers.
I know of a few studies on the psychological construction of cinematic villians and a small handful of works that look at the cultural symbols located in horror films. The later of these works tend to look at the overall horror film as a symbol for moralistic Western theories. Horror films, in this view, are placed on the level of moral stories, parablles and cautionary tales. If you want to survive a horror film and have premarital sex, drink heavily and partake in one or two drugs that are frowned upon by the establishment then your hopes of survival are slim to none. Some serial/slasher villians can be seen as anti-christ characters. Anti-Christ in the way that they cause missery to those around them and when killed tend to rise from the grave.
I want to look at the killers. Examine how they are created, villified and how they work as symbols in our society. I hypothosize that when you view these characters in a non-moralistic way you can see these films as a key to infer how our society looks at those that are different from us.
I'm not planing on discussing sci-fi or any films involving aliens as that can open a whole new bag. A film's portrayal of aliens and their interactions with humans can inform us on how we view immigrations or on a totally diferent plane, in films where aliens make use of mind control of a populace (see Invaders from Mars and Invasion of the Pod People, among others) might be able to be seen as a visualization of our fears of an over controlling government that is alien to us (the nation that cries out for freedom of speach and equal rights, regardless of how our government actual conducts itself these have been two ideals that we as a people have strove to make a reality). These are all things I could look at, but for now I just want to focus on the horror genre.
Take the incredibly crappy film Wrong Turn, in which a group of city folk get stuck in the wilderness and are hunted by monsters that turn out to be mutant imbred mountain people. Honestly it's a bastardization of the story Deliverance only less ass raping and more axe chucking (rape is replaced with savage killings, interesting change when you look at America's adversion towards sex but embracement of violence). The monsters of Wrong Turn are an overblown stereotype held of backwoods country folk (i.e. they all be a breed of imbreds who have little morals, of course this is hardly the case in reality). The same could be construed to a more recent horror film The Descent where we find rural C.H.U.D.s (Canibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers) which we can asume came about from a group of mountain folk retreating to the deep recesses of the caves and slowly evolution and imbreeding creates the pasty, monsterous troll like creatures we find in the film. All of this is my interpritation of the film as it made no attempt to explain the origins of the "Crawlers" (as they are refered to in the credits)at any point (possibly why this film doesn't fall flat on its face as a scary movie, and why Wrong Turn failed horribly, the explination of the origin of a rediculous monster).
I think this may end up being two studies. One on the cultural symbolism of the villians in horror films and the second on how the films choose to villify the "monsters." Then again both topics inform eachother and would be interesting to combine. Though that will be a long ass paper I think.
Question is... would any of you read something like that? Do you think that any of these arguments have any credibility or am I just blowing smoke into the wind, or up my ass, which is a feat as I'm not entierly super flexible.
Wednesday, September 6
Tuesday, August 29
Aisle 24
Aisle 24: Performance Art Supplies
It has been a long past few weeks, filled to the brim with performances and interesting crap. So without further ado here is a recap of the many things I have seen.
August 17th: Titus X
I imagine there are few Shakespearian plays you could convert into a punk rock opera other than Titus Andromicus. Everything you could want in a punk musical is there, violence, rape, war, cooking... It is an edgy and confrontational play, always has been and punk is edgy and confrontational as well right? Well, not really anymore. One can't say that punk is as revelant and jarring as it was when it first appeared on the scene. In becoming a commodity, a sterreotype, punk gave up most of its credibility and edgyness (though there are the odd few bands that still give it their all).
But this is not another essay on how punk has let me down, this is a witnessing of the horror that is Titus X. Horror, yes, horror like I Know What You Did Last Summer horror. The kind that makes you want to be scared as the premis is disturbing enough but you just can't help but laugh at the failings of the production. Did I laugh at Titus X? Why yes I did. I laughed and for a second I was insulted and the urge to leave my seat filled me, however no I could not do that. The show was free (yay M and your crazy theater reviewing prowesses!), and well there is always much to be learned when watching a piece of theater you don't find all that good.
The musical claimed to be a punk retelling of Titus. I was expecting several things, good punk music was on top of that chart. I didn't know if the play was using actual punk songs or making new songs up or what have you, but if they were to make songs I wanted to see a distinct difference in the styles of the songs. As each character in the play is unique and has their own story, their own motives they should have their own style of music too. Hell the play features Goths. I'd expect a couple of goth songs (something like Bauhaus or Joy Division, possibly, if they wanted to be more modern, NIN, Marylin Manson, or Mindless Self Indulgence -- the Invader Zim goth types). What I got were the same types of songs over and over. Oh there were some variations and even three songs I actually liked (Aaron's first solo was the only one that had balls, the love song about where the two kids loved that they didn't hate each other, and song by Levinia after the act of... but I get ahead of myself). On top of it all the songs were LONG. Punk tends to be fast and short (like crappy sex), it gets straight to the point says what it wants and leaves (again like crappy sex). This aspect of the genre is so important because when punk was gaining a following all the mainstream songs were super long (guitar solos, drum solos, key board solos, orangatang solos you name it) and incredibly over produced (like boring sex). Punk was instant satisfaction, concentrated energy shook up in a beer can passed to that dick friend and exploded all over their face (again like crappy sex, I mean its crappy but still its sex, its better than nothing right?). So long songs, needless repetition (not in the fun way that the Exploited's "Sex and Violence"- which would have been great for the house music but was absent- was, but more in the gregorian chant way), and it was all straight edge, emo-hardcore like music. I honestly should have realized that going to a show claiming to be punk and containing the letter "X" in the title would yeild this (unless it involved the band X who were NOT straight edge- please see their song "Nausea" for proof).
Moving on to the characterization and away from the music. Well, it was a small cast. Two actors basically played all the many different sons on all sides, Goths and Roman alike. The actors weren't bad, they just irked me. You could see the cockyness in their eyes, the "you are here to celebrate my wonder" cockyness. But it was the characterization of the roles that annoyed me more than the actors. Everyone was freakin' emo! Titus was even a little emo, and that's just wrong. Titus, if I were to imagine him in a punk world would be more of a combination of Iggy Pop and Danzig as they are now. Have you seen pictures of Iggy Pop taken recently? He looks dead tired, as Titus describes himself. In my reading of the character Titus I see a man who decides to leave the war business because he is tired of all his sons being killed. He is tired of all the death, the empty praises of the people. Hell he gives up the chance to be emporer because he just doesn't want to be bothered with all the political bull caaca. Moving on, the goths... well the Queen of the Goths looked a bit gothy, but her sons. Her sons looked as if they were new wave kids. I would expect them to listen to Devo. They were hyperactive and filled with malicious joy. Maliciousness is ok, but joy? Have you ever seen a goth kid smile in a circumstance that did not invlove the bitter hand of irony playing a part? No. If they did smile they wouldn't be goth, they would be stripped of their black garb and apathetic shoe gazing stare. All of Titus's kids were emo, think I mentioned that before... his daughter, Levinia, seemed to have the pep of a rude girl (i.e. female ska kid) but wasn't, she also was most certainly not a riot grrrl either (shame as both musical genres would have suited both the actress's voice and the character's persona).
I will say two good things about the musical though. It had alot of blood, alot of blood, and lots of baby killing, hell they even killed the bass player (which could have been a reference, but I doubt it). Also possibly one of the most entertaining portions of the show and one of the best songs was Levinia's song to her dad after she has been raped, had her tounge ripped out and hands chopped off. Yes, you heard me right, she has a song AFTER her tounge gets ripped out. With a mouth filled with bright red fake blood and with only the ability to utter grunts and vowels Levinia gave the most spirited performance of the night (just goes to show you that sometimes you really don't need deep lyrics to impress an audience).
So that was a bust but it could have been worse. They did have ear plugs. Very considerate of them.
August 18th: I Saw the Evil One.
I was suppose to go see Mother Courage with Meryle Streep and Kevin Kline, sadly I was seven people away from getting tickets, damn my luck. So I went to a tiny hole in the wall theater/gallery on 42nd street and saw I Saw the Evil One, a vaudville morality tale of a Panda's journey out into the world and the events that happen to her upon leaving her safe home. First off let me say that this was NOT a children's play. Oh no. It was, so far, the oddest thing I have seen on stage since moving to New York City. The main character the Panda was a young woman in a panda suit. Shortly after taking the stage she took off the large panda head and sported some pretty nice panda face paint. All the characters were absurdly colorful and disturbingly surreal. There was her "New Friend," a self described cutter, who looked like the cook for the Joe that wore that multi-colored smoking jacket, her first love intrest, Kittiepants, a wild untamed cat that gave Panda her first lesbian experience (all the while horny pink bunnies hopped on stage tossing felt hearts in the air and humping each other, as rabbits do), a mob of angry villagers, and, of course, the Evil One (i.e. the devil who date rapes and doesn't return your calls). All the while in the backgroung there's a band of sorts playing disjointed art rock while a female singer in angle wings narrates the action in song. Such jems included "Put Your Hand on My Stomach," "I Saw the Evil One," "Don't Look at Me (while we're having sex)," and "(You fuck) Like a Girl." The songs were well put together, the music was interesting, what was going on on the stage was insanely interesting. All in all the production was well done and not offensive (surprisingly given what happens in the play). Oh and the moral is not to be an angry villager that wants to destroy what you don't understand or agree with, because if you do, you are going to go to hell.
Double brownie points goes to this production for having an opening band. The Bloodthirsty Betsys are an all female band that sang about zombies, vampires and other such great evil things, from a high school view point. They weren't the cleanest band but you know what? I really don't like clean over produced bands. If I wanted to hear something that was tightly put together I'd listen to a cd from the Billboard. What I heard that night was raw and the rawness was good. Also I heard some of the best lines in the world, "I love him and he loves blood, he's my vampire boyfriend," "Zombie boy why don't you come up to me and ask me out? Zombie boy why don't I go up to you and ask you out?" Imagine those kids in high school that would sing songs or write poetry about how awkward dating is (and will always be) no toss in zombies and other monsters. I think you can all see why I enjoyed this band.
August 20th: Rev. Billy.
I saw the good Rev. Billy at the Spiegle Tent at the South Street Sea Port (which is an over grown commercial mecca center). Rev. Billy is the head of the Church of Stop-Shopping and he leads his congrigation and chorus in a spirited sermon about the evils of consumerism, the dangers of big corporations, the blindness of religious fanaticism (I know it's hillarious!) and all in a style that mimics a Southern Baptist/Televangilist Sermon. It was great. It was moving. It was inspiring. It was basically everything that more "Godly" religious services are to people who frequent churches or temples or what have you. The mantra of the day was "We believe in the God that the people who don't believe in God believe in." At the end of the service the whole group, performers and audience went outside the tent and sang towards the Vicotria Secrets store (Rev. Billy and his followers had a restraining order against them that forbid them from setting foot inside the mall). The song was as follows:
Victoria, we know your secrets
Your cataloges, are made from clear cuts.
Your famous angels, heat up the sky!
Did you intend, that we should all die?
Fun times that.
August 22: part 1, Czechosolvak-American Marionette Theatre's "Once there was a Village."
I like puppetry, I like Eastern European culture, I like New York history. Put all of these together and you have the Czechoslovak-American Marrionette Theatre's (CAMT) "Once there was a Village." I saw this as part of the Lincoln Center's Out of Doors series. The play is a work in progress, a work that should be completed by February for its debut at La Mama's theater. It is based off of the memoire of the same name by Yuri Kapralov. I've just started reading the book and it is amazing. The book chronicles Kapralov's life in the East Village during the late 60's. A time when the streets were dangerous, filled with junkies, rioters, violent police officers, and normal people just trying to survive in the urban war zone. This all took place before the gentrification of the East Village. There were some artists there, but none famous enough to draw a crowd. The production looked at the many phases the East Village went through and the many people that made it their home. Needless to say there was alot of violence.
It is interesting that when people see the word puppets they instantly expect the muppets and light hearted tales to be told. Many of the audience that went to see this production brought their children. Actually the make up of the audience was prodominately young children and elderly seinor citizens. Some people were upset that there were no marionettes, others were upset that there were no traditional puppets at all, many were upset with what the play was about. These people, I believe, neglected to read the program. The material of the play was explained in the program, it made mention of the violence and turmoil that was present throughout the land, yet some people got upset and left, not alot, but enough for me to notice. Some dragged their kids away, others muttered under their breath, all in all it was nothing too dramatic. The thing is the majority of the children enjoyed the show, several stayed to watch the performance's second run. I found the play to be quite moving and beautiful, while also highly entertaining.
The "puppets" were found objects. Suitcases were used to show the snapping jaws of the alligators in the swamp of Manhattan (playing on the myth of sewer gators no doubt, and creating the enviroment quite well), a vacuum cleaner was used as a plane that dropped bombs upon a village made of randome articles that you could find lying around your home as a milk crate with an elaborate dummy's head told the story of a European village's destruction from passing planes, wops were used as paddles, and then instantly flipped and became love ones huddled in their arms, and so forth. Live actors created most of the action (possibly something to be changed in the final version, though regardless they all did a fine job telling stories and monologues of the people who settled in the area known as the East Village, from the time it was a swamp to the gentrification process), and the Hungry March Band provided the music.
All in all it was a pleasent way to spend an afternoon. I know for sure that in February I will deffinately be seeing their full production.
August 22: part 2, Slavic Soul Party!
After seeing the CAMT, I headed east to Brooklyn to catch the Slavic Soul Party! perform at a small little bar called Barbes. The bar was red, and tiny. The band was energetic and lively. The audience was quickly whipped up into a mass ball off exuberance. The whole room came alive with people dancing, singing and, well, making merry. It was a gypsy, Balkan day and I can't wait to catch their next show.
Some where along this time I saw Snakes on a Plane and The Descent, both were great in their own way. See them... or don't.
August 25: The Balkan Social Group
I was just walking around Washington Square Park thinking about the paper I had to write on Eastern European culture and its influence on the artistic New York, when I happened upon a Balkan brass band. I shit you not. So I sat down watched them play, took some notes and some photos and had a good time.
The great thing about the whole event was that once people joined in the audience they quickly became part of the performance. People were given insturments to play, they were taught simple traditional Slavic folk dances and again everyone made merry. It was a great thing to be a witness to. Towards the end other street performers started to come by the group and join up in the music making. Several of my friends showed up and were pleasently surprised by the events and once the musicians called it a night I went to the organizer of the night and had a quick chat with him. Turns out that he, along with some other musicians, had just come back from a workshop in Balkan Gypsy music and decided they wanted to get together and play in an open and public space. Very informal and basically set up to provide a place for people who like the Balkan culture and music can come by and have fun with it. I also learned that this was their first event. So yay for me for discovering something new.
August 26th: The Stone and the Hear and Now Orchestra
My friend Will has been talking up this interesting place in the East Village called The Stone. The Stone is an avant garde music venue where for ten dollars you can watch and listen to some very interesting performance art. There is no alcohol, no food, and no talking. You go there and you experience the sounds.
The group we saw were the Hear and Now Orchestra. Think avant garde piano, sax percushion, singing and poetry, more or less improvised on the spot, and that's what it was. From a cocophony of sound came some of the most haunting music I ever heard. The lead voice was an elderly man (with a thick Eastern European accent, no I did not plan for that) who read disjointed poetry while the rest of the crew worked off of that and one another. A few great lines, "Everything has its own song," "Summers in New York, hot beautiful ladies," "You must know that you are not the only one." All of these were repeated and sustained and played about. It was crazy.
Well... that's it for now. If you read all of this I'm shocked and amazed. Congrats to you! Till next... Cheers.
It has been a long past few weeks, filled to the brim with performances and interesting crap. So without further ado here is a recap of the many things I have seen.
August 17th: Titus X
I imagine there are few Shakespearian plays you could convert into a punk rock opera other than Titus Andromicus. Everything you could want in a punk musical is there, violence, rape, war, cooking... It is an edgy and confrontational play, always has been and punk is edgy and confrontational as well right? Well, not really anymore. One can't say that punk is as revelant and jarring as it was when it first appeared on the scene. In becoming a commodity, a sterreotype, punk gave up most of its credibility and edgyness (though there are the odd few bands that still give it their all).
But this is not another essay on how punk has let me down, this is a witnessing of the horror that is Titus X. Horror, yes, horror like I Know What You Did Last Summer horror. The kind that makes you want to be scared as the premis is disturbing enough but you just can't help but laugh at the failings of the production. Did I laugh at Titus X? Why yes I did. I laughed and for a second I was insulted and the urge to leave my seat filled me, however no I could not do that. The show was free (yay M and your crazy theater reviewing prowesses!), and well there is always much to be learned when watching a piece of theater you don't find all that good.
The musical claimed to be a punk retelling of Titus. I was expecting several things, good punk music was on top of that chart. I didn't know if the play was using actual punk songs or making new songs up or what have you, but if they were to make songs I wanted to see a distinct difference in the styles of the songs. As each character in the play is unique and has their own story, their own motives they should have their own style of music too. Hell the play features Goths. I'd expect a couple of goth songs (something like Bauhaus or Joy Division, possibly, if they wanted to be more modern, NIN, Marylin Manson, or Mindless Self Indulgence -- the Invader Zim goth types). What I got were the same types of songs over and over. Oh there were some variations and even three songs I actually liked (Aaron's first solo was the only one that had balls, the love song about where the two kids loved that they didn't hate each other, and song by Levinia after the act of... but I get ahead of myself). On top of it all the songs were LONG. Punk tends to be fast and short (like crappy sex), it gets straight to the point says what it wants and leaves (again like crappy sex). This aspect of the genre is so important because when punk was gaining a following all the mainstream songs were super long (guitar solos, drum solos, key board solos, orangatang solos you name it) and incredibly over produced (like boring sex). Punk was instant satisfaction, concentrated energy shook up in a beer can passed to that dick friend and exploded all over their face (again like crappy sex, I mean its crappy but still its sex, its better than nothing right?). So long songs, needless repetition (not in the fun way that the Exploited's "Sex and Violence"- which would have been great for the house music but was absent- was, but more in the gregorian chant way), and it was all straight edge, emo-hardcore like music. I honestly should have realized that going to a show claiming to be punk and containing the letter "X" in the title would yeild this (unless it involved the band X who were NOT straight edge- please see their song "Nausea" for proof).
Moving on to the characterization and away from the music. Well, it was a small cast. Two actors basically played all the many different sons on all sides, Goths and Roman alike. The actors weren't bad, they just irked me. You could see the cockyness in their eyes, the "you are here to celebrate my wonder" cockyness. But it was the characterization of the roles that annoyed me more than the actors. Everyone was freakin' emo! Titus was even a little emo, and that's just wrong. Titus, if I were to imagine him in a punk world would be more of a combination of Iggy Pop and Danzig as they are now. Have you seen pictures of Iggy Pop taken recently? He looks dead tired, as Titus describes himself. In my reading of the character Titus I see a man who decides to leave the war business because he is tired of all his sons being killed. He is tired of all the death, the empty praises of the people. Hell he gives up the chance to be emporer because he just doesn't want to be bothered with all the political bull caaca. Moving on, the goths... well the Queen of the Goths looked a bit gothy, but her sons. Her sons looked as if they were new wave kids. I would expect them to listen to Devo. They were hyperactive and filled with malicious joy. Maliciousness is ok, but joy? Have you ever seen a goth kid smile in a circumstance that did not invlove the bitter hand of irony playing a part? No. If they did smile they wouldn't be goth, they would be stripped of their black garb and apathetic shoe gazing stare. All of Titus's kids were emo, think I mentioned that before... his daughter, Levinia, seemed to have the pep of a rude girl (i.e. female ska kid) but wasn't, she also was most certainly not a riot grrrl either (shame as both musical genres would have suited both the actress's voice and the character's persona).
I will say two good things about the musical though. It had alot of blood, alot of blood, and lots of baby killing, hell they even killed the bass player (which could have been a reference, but I doubt it). Also possibly one of the most entertaining portions of the show and one of the best songs was Levinia's song to her dad after she has been raped, had her tounge ripped out and hands chopped off. Yes, you heard me right, she has a song AFTER her tounge gets ripped out. With a mouth filled with bright red fake blood and with only the ability to utter grunts and vowels Levinia gave the most spirited performance of the night (just goes to show you that sometimes you really don't need deep lyrics to impress an audience).
So that was a bust but it could have been worse. They did have ear plugs. Very considerate of them.
August 18th: I Saw the Evil One.
I was suppose to go see Mother Courage with Meryle Streep and Kevin Kline, sadly I was seven people away from getting tickets, damn my luck. So I went to a tiny hole in the wall theater/gallery on 42nd street and saw I Saw the Evil One, a vaudville morality tale of a Panda's journey out into the world and the events that happen to her upon leaving her safe home. First off let me say that this was NOT a children's play. Oh no. It was, so far, the oddest thing I have seen on stage since moving to New York City. The main character the Panda was a young woman in a panda suit. Shortly after taking the stage she took off the large panda head and sported some pretty nice panda face paint. All the characters were absurdly colorful and disturbingly surreal. There was her "New Friend," a self described cutter, who looked like the cook for the Joe that wore that multi-colored smoking jacket, her first love intrest, Kittiepants, a wild untamed cat that gave Panda her first lesbian experience (all the while horny pink bunnies hopped on stage tossing felt hearts in the air and humping each other, as rabbits do), a mob of angry villagers, and, of course, the Evil One (i.e. the devil who date rapes and doesn't return your calls). All the while in the backgroung there's a band of sorts playing disjointed art rock while a female singer in angle wings narrates the action in song. Such jems included "Put Your Hand on My Stomach," "I Saw the Evil One," "Don't Look at Me (while we're having sex)," and "(You fuck) Like a Girl." The songs were well put together, the music was interesting, what was going on on the stage was insanely interesting. All in all the production was well done and not offensive (surprisingly given what happens in the play). Oh and the moral is not to be an angry villager that wants to destroy what you don't understand or agree with, because if you do, you are going to go to hell.
Double brownie points goes to this production for having an opening band. The Bloodthirsty Betsys are an all female band that sang about zombies, vampires and other such great evil things, from a high school view point. They weren't the cleanest band but you know what? I really don't like clean over produced bands. If I wanted to hear something that was tightly put together I'd listen to a cd from the Billboard. What I heard that night was raw and the rawness was good. Also I heard some of the best lines in the world, "I love him and he loves blood, he's my vampire boyfriend," "Zombie boy why don't you come up to me and ask me out? Zombie boy why don't I go up to you and ask you out?" Imagine those kids in high school that would sing songs or write poetry about how awkward dating is (and will always be) no toss in zombies and other monsters. I think you can all see why I enjoyed this band.
August 20th: Rev. Billy.
I saw the good Rev. Billy at the Spiegle Tent at the South Street Sea Port (which is an over grown commercial mecca center). Rev. Billy is the head of the Church of Stop-Shopping and he leads his congrigation and chorus in a spirited sermon about the evils of consumerism, the dangers of big corporations, the blindness of religious fanaticism (I know it's hillarious!) and all in a style that mimics a Southern Baptist/Televangilist Sermon. It was great. It was moving. It was inspiring. It was basically everything that more "Godly" religious services are to people who frequent churches or temples or what have you. The mantra of the day was "We believe in the God that the people who don't believe in God believe in." At the end of the service the whole group, performers and audience went outside the tent and sang towards the Vicotria Secrets store (Rev. Billy and his followers had a restraining order against them that forbid them from setting foot inside the mall). The song was as follows:
Victoria, we know your secrets
Your cataloges, are made from clear cuts.
Your famous angels, heat up the sky!
Did you intend, that we should all die?
Fun times that.
August 22: part 1, Czechosolvak-American Marionette Theatre's "Once there was a Village."
I like puppetry, I like Eastern European culture, I like New York history. Put all of these together and you have the Czechoslovak-American Marrionette Theatre's (CAMT) "Once there was a Village." I saw this as part of the Lincoln Center's Out of Doors series. The play is a work in progress, a work that should be completed by February for its debut at La Mama's theater. It is based off of the memoire of the same name by Yuri Kapralov. I've just started reading the book and it is amazing. The book chronicles Kapralov's life in the East Village during the late 60's. A time when the streets were dangerous, filled with junkies, rioters, violent police officers, and normal people just trying to survive in the urban war zone. This all took place before the gentrification of the East Village. There were some artists there, but none famous enough to draw a crowd. The production looked at the many phases the East Village went through and the many people that made it their home. Needless to say there was alot of violence.
It is interesting that when people see the word puppets they instantly expect the muppets and light hearted tales to be told. Many of the audience that went to see this production brought their children. Actually the make up of the audience was prodominately young children and elderly seinor citizens. Some people were upset that there were no marionettes, others were upset that there were no traditional puppets at all, many were upset with what the play was about. These people, I believe, neglected to read the program. The material of the play was explained in the program, it made mention of the violence and turmoil that was present throughout the land, yet some people got upset and left, not alot, but enough for me to notice. Some dragged their kids away, others muttered under their breath, all in all it was nothing too dramatic. The thing is the majority of the children enjoyed the show, several stayed to watch the performance's second run. I found the play to be quite moving and beautiful, while also highly entertaining.
The "puppets" were found objects. Suitcases were used to show the snapping jaws of the alligators in the swamp of Manhattan (playing on the myth of sewer gators no doubt, and creating the enviroment quite well), a vacuum cleaner was used as a plane that dropped bombs upon a village made of randome articles that you could find lying around your home as a milk crate with an elaborate dummy's head told the story of a European village's destruction from passing planes, wops were used as paddles, and then instantly flipped and became love ones huddled in their arms, and so forth. Live actors created most of the action (possibly something to be changed in the final version, though regardless they all did a fine job telling stories and monologues of the people who settled in the area known as the East Village, from the time it was a swamp to the gentrification process), and the Hungry March Band provided the music.
All in all it was a pleasent way to spend an afternoon. I know for sure that in February I will deffinately be seeing their full production.
August 22: part 2, Slavic Soul Party!
After seeing the CAMT, I headed east to Brooklyn to catch the Slavic Soul Party! perform at a small little bar called Barbes. The bar was red, and tiny. The band was energetic and lively. The audience was quickly whipped up into a mass ball off exuberance. The whole room came alive with people dancing, singing and, well, making merry. It was a gypsy, Balkan day and I can't wait to catch their next show.
Some where along this time I saw Snakes on a Plane and The Descent, both were great in their own way. See them... or don't.
August 25: The Balkan Social Group
I was just walking around Washington Square Park thinking about the paper I had to write on Eastern European culture and its influence on the artistic New York, when I happened upon a Balkan brass band. I shit you not. So I sat down watched them play, took some notes and some photos and had a good time.
The great thing about the whole event was that once people joined in the audience they quickly became part of the performance. People were given insturments to play, they were taught simple traditional Slavic folk dances and again everyone made merry. It was a great thing to be a witness to. Towards the end other street performers started to come by the group and join up in the music making. Several of my friends showed up and were pleasently surprised by the events and once the musicians called it a night I went to the organizer of the night and had a quick chat with him. Turns out that he, along with some other musicians, had just come back from a workshop in Balkan Gypsy music and decided they wanted to get together and play in an open and public space. Very informal and basically set up to provide a place for people who like the Balkan culture and music can come by and have fun with it. I also learned that this was their first event. So yay for me for discovering something new.
August 26th: The Stone and the Hear and Now Orchestra
My friend Will has been talking up this interesting place in the East Village called The Stone. The Stone is an avant garde music venue where for ten dollars you can watch and listen to some very interesting performance art. There is no alcohol, no food, and no talking. You go there and you experience the sounds.
The group we saw were the Hear and Now Orchestra. Think avant garde piano, sax percushion, singing and poetry, more or less improvised on the spot, and that's what it was. From a cocophony of sound came some of the most haunting music I ever heard. The lead voice was an elderly man (with a thick Eastern European accent, no I did not plan for that) who read disjointed poetry while the rest of the crew worked off of that and one another. A few great lines, "Everything has its own song," "Summers in New York, hot beautiful ladies," "You must know that you are not the only one." All of these were repeated and sustained and played about. It was crazy.
Well... that's it for now. If you read all of this I'm shocked and amazed. Congrats to you! Till next... Cheers.
Monday, August 7
Aisle 34 and 1/4
Aisle 34 & 1/4: The Bargin Movie Shelf
Rob Zombie is quickly becoming one of my favorite modern directors. I look over that sentance and I can't help but laugh a bit. Who would have thought that Rob Zombie films would have such a strong hold over me. Ok actually if you did meet me and got me talking about films then it would be pretty apparent that I go in for horrible B-movies, however, The Devil's Rejects is by no means a B-movie. House of 1000 Corpses could be seen as a B-movie and when people complained about that film to me I simply said to them, "Well, what did you expect from a Rob Zombie movie?" House of 1K Coropses was a pure splatter punk movie in the vein of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre {TCM} (almost to the point of ripping it off, I mean look at the families in both films, pretty similar, though Zombie's seemed a bit more colorful, oh and Bill Moseley - Otis - played Chop Top in TCM 2 so kind of makes sense).
Now why is Devil's Rejects not a B-movie? Because it is deadly serious in its tone. You see stuff on screen that is legitamately horrible, yet not just on a viceral level. Your psychie goes through as much horror as your gut. The viewer's sympathy goes from the victims to the villians in a fluid motion, it's an unstoppable force. Also alot of thought went into the story and the making of the film. There are references to older movies (every time I saw a cow I was taken back to TCM), interesting visual work, and one of the most gruesomely hillarious deaths imaginable.
Now is the film a horror film, a comedy, a thriller, a tragedy, or just a fucked up piece of art? I, personally, would place it in comedy, not in the same vein as a Will Ferrel movie, or even in the same class as Army of Darkness. This is more of a comedy of the human condition. You need only look at the music to see this. Listen to the songs when you watch the film. It's amazing. The film starts off with Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground," which is a bluesy rendition of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. You start a serial killer film off with a song about Jesus. What does the film end on? "Free Bird" and a violent and bloody shoot out with the cops. The music runs counter to what's going on yet at the same time if fits perfectly with the feel of the film. Just like in the first instalment with the reveal of the girls in the shed and the execution scene while the country song "I Remember You" by Slim Whitman played over the action.
The Devil's Rejects has to have one of the most thought out and interesting soundtrakcs I have ever heard. It also simultaneously repulsed, frightened, entertained and saddened me. To be able to bring out that many emotions in one film is truely something that only a select few directors and writers can do. Hell, I've been in relationships that had less emotions invested in them. So rock on Rob Zombie. I hope you make more movies soon and hopefully they will stand up to the level you set for yourself. Fuck Saw and those types of exploitative nouveau splatter punk movies that have been coming out. Devil's Rejects should not be placed in the same genre at all. Neither should House of 1000 Corpses as that film had a good sense of humor.
EDIT: Somthing I forgot to add in. I sort of picked this up when I was watching House of 1000 Corpses but thought it was just a coincidence until Devil's Rejects actually made mention of it as well. All of the Cutter family's aliases are taken from Marx Brothers films. Now that is pretty damn interesting isn't it?
Rob Zombie is quickly becoming one of my favorite modern directors. I look over that sentance and I can't help but laugh a bit. Who would have thought that Rob Zombie films would have such a strong hold over me. Ok actually if you did meet me and got me talking about films then it would be pretty apparent that I go in for horrible B-movies, however, The Devil's Rejects is by no means a B-movie. House of 1000 Corpses could be seen as a B-movie and when people complained about that film to me I simply said to them, "Well, what did you expect from a Rob Zombie movie?" House of 1K Coropses was a pure splatter punk movie in the vein of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre {TCM} (almost to the point of ripping it off, I mean look at the families in both films, pretty similar, though Zombie's seemed a bit more colorful, oh and Bill Moseley - Otis - played Chop Top in TCM 2 so kind of makes sense).
Now why is Devil's Rejects not a B-movie? Because it is deadly serious in its tone. You see stuff on screen that is legitamately horrible, yet not just on a viceral level. Your psychie goes through as much horror as your gut. The viewer's sympathy goes from the victims to the villians in a fluid motion, it's an unstoppable force. Also alot of thought went into the story and the making of the film. There are references to older movies (every time I saw a cow I was taken back to TCM), interesting visual work, and one of the most gruesomely hillarious deaths imaginable.
Now is the film a horror film, a comedy, a thriller, a tragedy, or just a fucked up piece of art? I, personally, would place it in comedy, not in the same vein as a Will Ferrel movie, or even in the same class as Army of Darkness. This is more of a comedy of the human condition. You need only look at the music to see this. Listen to the songs when you watch the film. It's amazing. The film starts off with Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground," which is a bluesy rendition of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. You start a serial killer film off with a song about Jesus. What does the film end on? "Free Bird" and a violent and bloody shoot out with the cops. The music runs counter to what's going on yet at the same time if fits perfectly with the feel of the film. Just like in the first instalment with the reveal of the girls in the shed and the execution scene while the country song "I Remember You" by Slim Whitman played over the action.
The Devil's Rejects has to have one of the most thought out and interesting soundtrakcs I have ever heard. It also simultaneously repulsed, frightened, entertained and saddened me. To be able to bring out that many emotions in one film is truely something that only a select few directors and writers can do. Hell, I've been in relationships that had less emotions invested in them. So rock on Rob Zombie. I hope you make more movies soon and hopefully they will stand up to the level you set for yourself. Fuck Saw and those types of exploitative nouveau splatter punk movies that have been coming out. Devil's Rejects should not be placed in the same genre at all. Neither should House of 1000 Corpses as that film had a good sense of humor.
EDIT: Somthing I forgot to add in. I sort of picked this up when I was watching House of 1000 Corpses but thought it was just a coincidence until Devil's Rejects actually made mention of it as well. All of the Cutter family's aliases are taken from Marx Brothers films. Now that is pretty damn interesting isn't it?
Wednesday, August 2
Aisle 34 and 3/4
Aisle 34 and 3/4: Bargin Bin Music Aisle.
Mike Patton is the future, Mike Patton is the past, Mike Patton is forever!
So what am I getting on about? Mike Patton's latest incarnation Peeping Tom. For those of you not in the know, Mike Patton is the voice and mind behind several interesting groups. The most widely known is Faith No More (yeah that Faith No More, the whole Epic video with the piano and the fish at the end, yep he's still around). But other bands he's formed have been Mr. Bungle (kind of metal circus music from hell), Fantomas (insturmentals mostly, though he does do some singing from time to time, and some yelling), and Tomahawk (which I have yet to hear any of this but I'm sure it is more experimental heavy metal stuff, as it involves a guy from Jesus Lizard). Patton also appears as the male vocals on the Lovage album (soon to be albums) and on several tracks on both Handsomeboy Modeling School albums. So he covers a spectrum.
How is this album/incarnaition different from the past few? Well it's not different persay but more of a combining of styles. Mojo (which features Dan the Automator - i.e. Nathaniel Merrieweather - and Rahzel) sounds pretty much what I would imagine Faith No More would sound like if they came to be around now. Neighborhood Spaceman (with Jel & Odd Nosdam), sounds like a more dubbed up and funk-a-fided version of Mr. Bungle. Caipirihana (with Bebel Gilberto)and Kill the DJ (with Massive Attack) both sound like some of Fantomas' stuff, i.e. Caipirihana sounds like evil laid back lounge music.
There isn't really any major experimentation on the album, no real sonic shocks, nothing too alarming (though Nora Jones does say "mother fucker" on one of the tracks. YAY!!). Dan the Automator seems to have rubbed off on Patton as he's put together some nice mixes and layers to the album. Also, Kool Keith is on one of the tracks, and if you have Kool Keith you make me happy.
So this isn't the best music essay but I just spent the day writing a very long essay on blues as a form of secular religion. So don't judge me.
Mike Patton is the future, Mike Patton is the past, Mike Patton is forever!
So what am I getting on about? Mike Patton's latest incarnation Peeping Tom. For those of you not in the know, Mike Patton is the voice and mind behind several interesting groups. The most widely known is Faith No More (yeah that Faith No More, the whole Epic video with the piano and the fish at the end, yep he's still around). But other bands he's formed have been Mr. Bungle (kind of metal circus music from hell), Fantomas (insturmentals mostly, though he does do some singing from time to time, and some yelling), and Tomahawk (which I have yet to hear any of this but I'm sure it is more experimental heavy metal stuff, as it involves a guy from Jesus Lizard). Patton also appears as the male vocals on the Lovage album (soon to be albums) and on several tracks on both Handsomeboy Modeling School albums. So he covers a spectrum.
How is this album/incarnaition different from the past few? Well it's not different persay but more of a combining of styles. Mojo (which features Dan the Automator - i.e. Nathaniel Merrieweather - and Rahzel) sounds pretty much what I would imagine Faith No More would sound like if they came to be around now. Neighborhood Spaceman (with Jel & Odd Nosdam), sounds like a more dubbed up and funk-a-fided version of Mr. Bungle. Caipirihana (with Bebel Gilberto)and Kill the DJ (with Massive Attack) both sound like some of Fantomas' stuff, i.e. Caipirihana sounds like evil laid back lounge music.
There isn't really any major experimentation on the album, no real sonic shocks, nothing too alarming (though Nora Jones does say "mother fucker" on one of the tracks. YAY!!). Dan the Automator seems to have rubbed off on Patton as he's put together some nice mixes and layers to the album. Also, Kool Keith is on one of the tracks, and if you have Kool Keith you make me happy.
So this isn't the best music essay but I just spent the day writing a very long essay on blues as a form of secular religion. So don't judge me.
Saturday, July 15
Aisle 25
Aisle 25: Hygenic Aisle
So I decided to reset my face. Let's look at the process shall we?
Firstly we have to start some where right? So me with beard. Oh how I love the beardocity of me. At this point I'm very close to completing the lumberjack beard, but sadly it is not to be at this point in time.
For as you see, I have now shaved off the majority of the goatee and all the side fuzz. This is what I like to call my sexy Spainard facial hair. Sure the chin tuft should be a bit more triangular and closer to the flesh but for it's purpose it works. Here I like to think of my expression as "cheaky monkey."
Oh my god I have a hat!
And here we have it. This is the me that is the now, for now, the facial hair will return.
Why did I do this you ask? Well I was bored and wanted to make sure I still had a chin. The down side, I now look very young, and I almost got turned out of a bar as the bouncer thought my ID was fake. Ah fun times.
Naked face!
So I decided to reset my face. Let's look at the process shall we?
Firstly we have to start some where right? So me with beard. Oh how I love the beardocity of me. At this point I'm very close to completing the lumberjack beard, but sadly it is not to be at this point in time.
For as you see, I have now shaved off the majority of the goatee and all the side fuzz. This is what I like to call my sexy Spainard facial hair. Sure the chin tuft should be a bit more triangular and closer to the flesh but for it's purpose it works. Here I like to think of my expression as "cheaky monkey."
Oh my god I have a hat!
And here we have it. This is the me that is the now, for now, the facial hair will return.
Why did I do this you ask? Well I was bored and wanted to make sure I still had a chin. The down side, I now look very young, and I almost got turned out of a bar as the bouncer thought my ID was fake. Ah fun times.
Naked face!
Monday, July 10
Aisle 24
Aisle 24: Performance Art Supplies
Essay on Contact Improvisation "exersice" from Friday's class. To find out more on contact improv check out this.
It is amazing what you learn about yourself after rolling around on the floor with fifty-five people that you have only known for three weeks. For that matter it is amazing what you learn about life from doing that. The contact improvisation “exercise” that we all took part in during the last lecture class brought forth several discussions afterwards, one of which was the realization made by several people that it is amazing the lengths we go to in trying to avoid contact with other people. We work so hard to create a personal, physical bubble around us, cutting ourselves off from the world. Whether it be through always keeping a seat between you and a stranger on the subway, or through conversing online via an instant messenger program rather than calling or, even more intimate, visiting the person you want to talk to. We are turning into a society that fears physical intimacy.
Contact improvisation pops our bubbles, but it does not force us to. No one instructed any of us to interact with each other in the way we did. Our personal movements might have started out as conscious choices on our own part but soon our movements were influenced by the movements of the bodies next to us. At first, for me at least, I was very conscious of sliding in and out of clusters of people, providing support for the stray leg or torso that came my way and getting supported in turn. Soon enough I noticed that my consciousness of my movements lessened and my body took over on its own. It seemed like a group mind started to form across the floor. In one way or another all fifty-five of us were connected and interacting in ways we would never imagine interacting when meeting on the street.
Where as unplanned physical contact with some one not familiar to you has the potential to create a feeling of unease, through contact improvisation (and the knowledge that we were all in a safe environment) created a state of euphoria in the room. At the conclusion of the exercise, while looking around the room I did not notice a single face that did not have a smile on it. The majority of the class may not have ever had any substantial exposure to contact improvisation before this day, and while it is likely that our little explosion of physicality might not hold up to an experienced troop of contact improvisers what we did attain is at its very essence of contact improvisation. The main rub of the art being “the experience of touching and sharing weight with a partner of either sex and any size as a way of constructing a new experience of the self interacting with another person” and doing so in a manner that remains spontaneous throughout (Novack 11). I think it goes without saying that we all shared this “new experience of self interacting with” other individuals. It was inviting, comforting and provided us with the physical contact that we all yearn for; yet constantly build up walls protecting ourselves from each day.
Work Cited
Novack, Cynthia. Sharing the Dance. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.
Essay on Contact Improvisation "exersice" from Friday's class. To find out more on contact improv check out this.
It is amazing what you learn about yourself after rolling around on the floor with fifty-five people that you have only known for three weeks. For that matter it is amazing what you learn about life from doing that. The contact improvisation “exercise” that we all took part in during the last lecture class brought forth several discussions afterwards, one of which was the realization made by several people that it is amazing the lengths we go to in trying to avoid contact with other people. We work so hard to create a personal, physical bubble around us, cutting ourselves off from the world. Whether it be through always keeping a seat between you and a stranger on the subway, or through conversing online via an instant messenger program rather than calling or, even more intimate, visiting the person you want to talk to. We are turning into a society that fears physical intimacy.
Contact improvisation pops our bubbles, but it does not force us to. No one instructed any of us to interact with each other in the way we did. Our personal movements might have started out as conscious choices on our own part but soon our movements were influenced by the movements of the bodies next to us. At first, for me at least, I was very conscious of sliding in and out of clusters of people, providing support for the stray leg or torso that came my way and getting supported in turn. Soon enough I noticed that my consciousness of my movements lessened and my body took over on its own. It seemed like a group mind started to form across the floor. In one way or another all fifty-five of us were connected and interacting in ways we would never imagine interacting when meeting on the street.
Where as unplanned physical contact with some one not familiar to you has the potential to create a feeling of unease, through contact improvisation (and the knowledge that we were all in a safe environment) created a state of euphoria in the room. At the conclusion of the exercise, while looking around the room I did not notice a single face that did not have a smile on it. The majority of the class may not have ever had any substantial exposure to contact improvisation before this day, and while it is likely that our little explosion of physicality might not hold up to an experienced troop of contact improvisers what we did attain is at its very essence of contact improvisation. The main rub of the art being “the experience of touching and sharing weight with a partner of either sex and any size as a way of constructing a new experience of the self interacting with another person” and doing so in a manner that remains spontaneous throughout (Novack 11). I think it goes without saying that we all shared this “new experience of self interacting with” other individuals. It was inviting, comforting and provided us with the physical contact that we all yearn for; yet constantly build up walls protecting ourselves from each day.
Work Cited
Novack, Cynthia. Sharing the Dance. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.
Sunday, July 9
Aisle 3
Aisle 3: The Empty Aisle
Well, it's that time again. The time that I've been avoiding. I am going to have to go grocery shopping, whether I like it or not. I'm in a trnsitional phase right now. I'm pretty poor but soon I will be not as poor and soon after that I will be pretty darn comfortable. But that time, she is not now. However I need groceries. I need dinner and lunch for tomorrow, and the next few days. I am getting some care packages soonish, but regardless I don't think I can stomach peanut butter and fluff or my roommate's lasagna any more. Not that either are bad, both are quite good, I just need something else. Something non-pasta based. The only real bad thing is that my mind is drawing a blank on what to make. Maybe pizza. Ooo French bread pizza would be nice.
I've been putting off grocery shopping for quite some time now. It seems my roommates don't go into it all that much either. The fridge is almost always empty. Maybe it's a New York thing. In any case I'm so not use to it. I need a fridge with random food in it at all times. Non-liquid food. Ugh... I hate grocery shopping on a budget.
Well, it's that time again. The time that I've been avoiding. I am going to have to go grocery shopping, whether I like it or not. I'm in a trnsitional phase right now. I'm pretty poor but soon I will be not as poor and soon after that I will be pretty darn comfortable. But that time, she is not now. However I need groceries. I need dinner and lunch for tomorrow, and the next few days. I am getting some care packages soonish, but regardless I don't think I can stomach peanut butter and fluff or my roommate's lasagna any more. Not that either are bad, both are quite good, I just need something else. Something non-pasta based. The only real bad thing is that my mind is drawing a blank on what to make. Maybe pizza. Ooo French bread pizza would be nice.
I've been putting off grocery shopping for quite some time now. It seems my roommates don't go into it all that much either. The fridge is almost always empty. Maybe it's a New York thing. In any case I'm so not use to it. I need a fridge with random food in it at all times. Non-liquid food. Ugh... I hate grocery shopping on a budget.
Thursday, June 22
Aisle 17
Aisle 17: The Artsy Fartsy Aisle.
This is going to be a short post. I know! A short LitSM! How can that be? But it is. I have much reading to do.
Just wanted to mention one, ONE thing. I just had my second day of grad school. Both days I had to write a responce to the readings (it's what we do). Both times I mention punk, or something punk like. At first I was a bit taken aback. Why am I writing about punk in a performance studies course. Then it hits me, because punk is a performance! Duh! It is what interests me and I'm not too bad about writing about it. Now both essays are very minimal in their inclusion of punk, however I just read an article writen by my professor, Jose Esteban Munoz, the essay, "Stages: Queers, Punks, and the Utopian Performative." So the head of my department is a punk. This so psychs me up! I figured I would have to be all philosophical and theatrical but now I see I can use ALL of my odd knowledge while dealing with this class. Hell I think I may just start including B-cinema into the event.
Many of my fellow classmates are very well spoken and highly intelligent. The honestly blow me out of the water, but I think I can actually hold my own now. I've been trying desperately to sound smart, what I need to be doing is sound like myself and hope for the best.
In any case tomorrow we talk about punks, queer theory and the book Camera Lucida, which is about photography. I think I can handle this. Just why the hell does Derrida have to poke his head in?!? Damn modern French philosophers.
This is going to be a short post. I know! A short LitSM! How can that be? But it is. I have much reading to do.
Just wanted to mention one, ONE thing. I just had my second day of grad school. Both days I had to write a responce to the readings (it's what we do). Both times I mention punk, or something punk like. At first I was a bit taken aback. Why am I writing about punk in a performance studies course. Then it hits me, because punk is a performance! Duh! It is what interests me and I'm not too bad about writing about it. Now both essays are very minimal in their inclusion of punk, however I just read an article writen by my professor, Jose Esteban Munoz, the essay, "Stages: Queers, Punks, and the Utopian Performative." So the head of my department is a punk. This so psychs me up! I figured I would have to be all philosophical and theatrical but now I see I can use ALL of my odd knowledge while dealing with this class. Hell I think I may just start including B-cinema into the event.
Many of my fellow classmates are very well spoken and highly intelligent. The honestly blow me out of the water, but I think I can actually hold my own now. I've been trying desperately to sound smart, what I need to be doing is sound like myself and hope for the best.
In any case tomorrow we talk about punks, queer theory and the book Camera Lucida, which is about photography. I think I can handle this. Just why the hell does Derrida have to poke his head in?!? Damn modern French philosophers.
Tuesday, June 20
Aisle 24
Aisle 24: Performance Art Supplies
Well it is officially time for me to start becoming pretentious. Let the grad school party year begin!
I had orrientation yesterday. The faculty is wonderfully nice and facinating (even the areas I have no interest in drew me in). I met a bunch of people, several of whom seem to be just as freaked out as I am about the whole grad program at Tisch, so yay for solidarity. I believe a support group is in the making, a support group that goes out and drinks and watches performance art and then drinks some more to forget the naked man dancing in the tub of fritos. This is just a guess.
The one consitant thing we were told is that this summer is going to be hell for all of us. Well... I do have tons of reading, but I'm kind of use to that. The only two things that freak me out, honestly freak me out, are the second class I'm taking and the fact that in a year I will have a masters and have just finished a major performance art project (which I have no clue as to what the bloody hell I'm doing).
So the class that scares me. Ok first off when I got the course book I wanted to work with the ECA workshop but due to personal problems and apathy I never handed in my proposal (or wrote it for that matter), the only other class I thought was worth checking out would have been the Law as Performance class. Where they look at legal procedings and examin the performance aspects of the whole thing. Interesting to me that is. Did I sign up for it? Nope. I went and signed up for Black Womanist Spirituality in Popular American Music.
...
Yes. That is my first class after I get through the intro course (which starts tomorrow). Ok so some of you might be wondering exactly why the hell I picked this? Alright, the course description was boring (hence me going for the law thing) but the way the professor described the course I was rivited.
The class will deal with black feminist thought/politics (which is, in my opinion, a lot more interesting than standard feminist philosophy), and how it reacts to the culture of Christianity and religions contesting Christianity (Sengreia, Voudun {VOODOO!}). So again, why am I taking this? I love music. I also love social and cultural studies (hence the occasional passionate punk essays I spout off). I also, while not being overtly religious, am interested in regligion of all types. I like hearing people talk about their religious beliefs and so forth. I also like it when I can add something to the conversation, so um... this is kind of me trying to add something to the conversation... In any case I'm going to take a class that promises to be incredibly fascinating about a subject I have had very little formal training in. This is going to be another one of those situations like when I went from no philosophy courses to jumping into an advance class on modern French philosophers.
The other class I'm taking is a course on performance and theater in New York City. I'm going to go watch performances of all types and write (critically and theoretically) about them. This class will be fun. I was going to take a theoretical class on technology and theater but decided that I really wanted to get a head start on writing about theater. Also it's a way to go out and see odd shows of all sorts. So as of right now I am excited.
Once the fall swings around I'm even more excited, here's the list of possible classes I really could get into:
Freakshows and Racialized Performance
Healing and Performance
Foundations of Visual Culture
Time and Performance: Tradition and Temporality
The Spring has some interesting ones as well mainly a class all on Antonin Artaud and the Psychopathology of Expression. I'm such a dork for being legitamately excited about that, but I am. Yay theater of cruelty!
So the question is: What the hell do I want to focus on in my studies? I know I have a project due at the end of the spring, a big ass project, but I have no clue as to what direction I am going in. It seems half the people I know have some what of an idea and this disturbs me. Eh I'll figure it out, I normally do.
The one bad thing about this, I'm going to become something of a recluse till a year from now. Which may be a good thing. I have one hope and one dread that I'm not mentioning here as I don't really want to spell either of them out. Both might actually happen, which depending on their order will either be bearable or not so much so.
Well it is officially time for me to start becoming pretentious. Let the grad school party year begin!
I had orrientation yesterday. The faculty is wonderfully nice and facinating (even the areas I have no interest in drew me in). I met a bunch of people, several of whom seem to be just as freaked out as I am about the whole grad program at Tisch, so yay for solidarity. I believe a support group is in the making, a support group that goes out and drinks and watches performance art and then drinks some more to forget the naked man dancing in the tub of fritos. This is just a guess.
The one consitant thing we were told is that this summer is going to be hell for all of us. Well... I do have tons of reading, but I'm kind of use to that. The only two things that freak me out, honestly freak me out, are the second class I'm taking and the fact that in a year I will have a masters and have just finished a major performance art project (which I have no clue as to what the bloody hell I'm doing).
So the class that scares me. Ok first off when I got the course book I wanted to work with the ECA workshop but due to personal problems and apathy I never handed in my proposal (or wrote it for that matter), the only other class I thought was worth checking out would have been the Law as Performance class. Where they look at legal procedings and examin the performance aspects of the whole thing. Interesting to me that is. Did I sign up for it? Nope. I went and signed up for Black Womanist Spirituality in Popular American Music.
...
Yes. That is my first class after I get through the intro course (which starts tomorrow). Ok so some of you might be wondering exactly why the hell I picked this? Alright, the course description was boring (hence me going for the law thing) but the way the professor described the course I was rivited.
The class will deal with black feminist thought/politics (which is, in my opinion, a lot more interesting than standard feminist philosophy), and how it reacts to the culture of Christianity and religions contesting Christianity (Sengreia, Voudun {VOODOO!}). So again, why am I taking this? I love music. I also love social and cultural studies (hence the occasional passionate punk essays I spout off). I also, while not being overtly religious, am interested in regligion of all types. I like hearing people talk about their religious beliefs and so forth. I also like it when I can add something to the conversation, so um... this is kind of me trying to add something to the conversation... In any case I'm going to take a class that promises to be incredibly fascinating about a subject I have had very little formal training in. This is going to be another one of those situations like when I went from no philosophy courses to jumping into an advance class on modern French philosophers.
The other class I'm taking is a course on performance and theater in New York City. I'm going to go watch performances of all types and write (critically and theoretically) about them. This class will be fun. I was going to take a theoretical class on technology and theater but decided that I really wanted to get a head start on writing about theater. Also it's a way to go out and see odd shows of all sorts. So as of right now I am excited.
Once the fall swings around I'm even more excited, here's the list of possible classes I really could get into:
Freakshows and Racialized Performance
Healing and Performance
Foundations of Visual Culture
Time and Performance: Tradition and Temporality
The Spring has some interesting ones as well mainly a class all on Antonin Artaud and the Psychopathology of Expression. I'm such a dork for being legitamately excited about that, but I am. Yay theater of cruelty!
So the question is: What the hell do I want to focus on in my studies? I know I have a project due at the end of the spring, a big ass project, but I have no clue as to what direction I am going in. It seems half the people I know have some what of an idea and this disturbs me. Eh I'll figure it out, I normally do.
The one bad thing about this, I'm going to become something of a recluse till a year from now. Which may be a good thing. I have one hope and one dread that I'm not mentioning here as I don't really want to spell either of them out. Both might actually happen, which depending on their order will either be bearable or not so much so.
Sunday, June 18
Aisle 33
Aisle 33: Tasty Beverage Aisle.
Ok so short preamble. Let this aisle hence forth be the aisle I make any semi-inebriated posts onto.
That being said, no I am not currently drunk. I am craving a cury though and it is ten of five as I type this out. I honestly don't think I can do the whole stay out at the bar till late in the three am hour all that often, as I get home way late. I'm sure once I start doing things I'm going to get really tired and end up needing sleep. These things happen, though I'd rather they not.
So why am I meandering through this aisle? To put it succintly I had a rather nice night out tonight and felt like commenting on that. Sure things are interesting, and by interesting I mean to say they are weird as fuck (though honestly how weird is fuck?), but regardless happy fun times.
Oh I had more to say only I'm really, really tired so the waxing prosaicly will have to wait for another time.
Ok so short preamble. Let this aisle hence forth be the aisle I make any semi-inebriated posts onto.
That being said, no I am not currently drunk. I am craving a cury though and it is ten of five as I type this out. I honestly don't think I can do the whole stay out at the bar till late in the three am hour all that often, as I get home way late. I'm sure once I start doing things I'm going to get really tired and end up needing sleep. These things happen, though I'd rather they not.
So why am I meandering through this aisle? To put it succintly I had a rather nice night out tonight and felt like commenting on that. Sure things are interesting, and by interesting I mean to say they are weird as fuck (though honestly how weird is fuck?), but regardless happy fun times.
Oh I had more to say only I'm really, really tired so the waxing prosaicly will have to wait for another time.
Saturday, June 10
Aisle 8
Aisle 8: Candy Aisle
Ah yes candy aisle. What love lorn things does the fuzzball have to ejaculate tonight? Actually, none. I just enjoy candy. I did, some how make an ex-potential jealous though which makes no sense, as the way I did so was by talking about a totally different ex-potential. I find this a bit silly as neither of the X-Ps know each other nor is it likely that anything will progress any farther than a hand shake and a hug between myself and either of them. Not that I wouldn't mind something more to happen but that's the way the cards were delt so it seems I must move on.
Moving on. It's a hard thing to do. It took me, what, three years to move on from Jill? (yeah I'll name her name as well it's hard to cover up her influence on my life). At least three years. Actually lets count this from the official first break up, ok so it has been six years since our initial relationship died. Six years from the day when I planed out a marriage and a future with a girl I loved dearly. Six years. Of course through out half of those six years I was still occasionally seeing her and at one point we officially got back together twice. Nuts for this girl I was. So what happened? What was the breaking point? I actually don't think I really ever did her justice when explaining the situation between us. I use to just pass the whole affair off as a case of infidelity, which it really wasn't. Oh there was the constant fear that she'd go off with what ever shiny thing got dangled infront of her face but she was the typical theater girl who fell hopelessly inlove with any stage love interest she was placed with. Also most of the relationship was "long distance" (like an hour drive, which seems like nothing now), so temptation was ever present for taking the convinent relationships that popped up on her.
However that was not the main reason that the relationship was finally cut asunder, and caused me to refuse contact with her for several years. The actual reason was because she was taking me for granted. I'm no great catch, I'll admit that. I'm not the most handsome guy, I'm not the athletic Greecian god people seek out, I've also been in the position of poor starving artist/student for most of my life, so I'm not really all set on being successful any time soon. I am however one of the legitamately nice guys you will meet. Now those just stumbling upon this are possibly thinking, what a pretentious fuck! But look I spent the better part of my life playing myself down. I know I'm not the perfect guy, I know I'm not the guy people would leave their boyfriends for, hell it's been proven that multiple girls feel no remorse for cheating on me. I am however nice. I'm also fucking awesome and weird. I'm not your normal guy, I'm almost a flash back to when guys were coy and courtious.
In any case let me continue. While I know I'm not the best out there, I also know I'm far better than the best tends to be in the long run, and I realised that putting up with all the shit I initially put up with was not a good thing. I delt with a girl who would use me as a butt of jokes, would rather spend time with her friends than anytime with me alone, and had the audacity to call me a snob when I was going through a really bad time. I am no snob. I may think you are below me but that is because you problibly think you're supperior and are infact an idiot. Every problem in the relationship was mine and mine alone. Some how me being angry about her infidelities was turned around to make me the bad guy, how she did that I'll never know but I give her credit that was sneaky as all fuck.
Now this paints a bad picture of her. Keep in mind that she was going through a horrilbe experience at home and at school. Now she seems to have changed, possibly grew up some. Not saying I'd scoop her up in a second, oh no no scooping with this one. But she is actually turning into the woman I originally knew she'd turn out to be all those years ago. The odd thing is I find no attraction to that person. Yes she left a mark on me, it was an intense mark, I will always remember her good and bad. But I can now see her from a new angle. We are different people. I'm no longer a door mat to be used by what ever pretty face shows some interest in me (this is a fairly new development, some may not have seen this in action yet). I am actually for once in my life feeling good about myself enough to know I'm worth some thing to some one. I guess in a way I took for granted that at one point she did think the world of me, I'd love to have that again, just with some one new. In time this will happen I'm sure of it. I can't be single all my life can I?
Eh, I've gotten a bit apathetic though about fighting for the affections of people I find attractive. If it's going to happen then it will happen, why should I go and try to wedge myself in there? More so why should I try this when I get no real definate signs of any return feelings? This has been the case with several girls over the past four years. Only twice did I screw up and miss out on two potentially great relationships where both girls actually were interested in me. One I'm sort of glad it turned out the way it did as she and I are far better as friends, plus who would we complain to about the idiots who won't date us? The other one I kind of wish I lowered my moral code low enough to have taken a chance with her. But nope, she had a boyfriend and though she wanted to leave him for me I knew how that would have played out. She'd leave her boyfriend of four years date me and eventually the boyfriend would have won her back from me leaving me back into the single world. Eventually the couple would break up on their own and thus ends a possible good thing. But Carl couldn't you two have tried to get back together? Yeah I guess we cold have, but we grew apart, and the constant going back and forth on who she wanted to be with kind of made me question wheather she knew what she actually wanted.
All this talk and it goes no where. I really wanted to talk about candy though. Actually to end on a positive note, I think a change is in the air. Either a new girl is going to pop up or something interesting will unfold with a very old friend, that none of you reading this know (well maybe one... but I doubt it). Meh, we'll see what happens over the next few months. I may be lonely now but it can't last forever.
Ah yes candy aisle. What love lorn things does the fuzzball have to ejaculate tonight? Actually, none. I just enjoy candy. I did, some how make an ex-potential jealous though which makes no sense, as the way I did so was by talking about a totally different ex-potential. I find this a bit silly as neither of the X-Ps know each other nor is it likely that anything will progress any farther than a hand shake and a hug between myself and either of them. Not that I wouldn't mind something more to happen but that's the way the cards were delt so it seems I must move on.
Moving on. It's a hard thing to do. It took me, what, three years to move on from Jill? (yeah I'll name her name as well it's hard to cover up her influence on my life). At least three years. Actually lets count this from the official first break up, ok so it has been six years since our initial relationship died. Six years from the day when I planed out a marriage and a future with a girl I loved dearly. Six years. Of course through out half of those six years I was still occasionally seeing her and at one point we officially got back together twice. Nuts for this girl I was. So what happened? What was the breaking point? I actually don't think I really ever did her justice when explaining the situation between us. I use to just pass the whole affair off as a case of infidelity, which it really wasn't. Oh there was the constant fear that she'd go off with what ever shiny thing got dangled infront of her face but she was the typical theater girl who fell hopelessly inlove with any stage love interest she was placed with. Also most of the relationship was "long distance" (like an hour drive, which seems like nothing now), so temptation was ever present for taking the convinent relationships that popped up on her.
However that was not the main reason that the relationship was finally cut asunder, and caused me to refuse contact with her for several years. The actual reason was because she was taking me for granted. I'm no great catch, I'll admit that. I'm not the most handsome guy, I'm not the athletic Greecian god people seek out, I've also been in the position of poor starving artist/student for most of my life, so I'm not really all set on being successful any time soon. I am however one of the legitamately nice guys you will meet. Now those just stumbling upon this are possibly thinking, what a pretentious fuck! But look I spent the better part of my life playing myself down. I know I'm not the perfect guy, I know I'm not the guy people would leave their boyfriends for, hell it's been proven that multiple girls feel no remorse for cheating on me. I am however nice. I'm also fucking awesome and weird. I'm not your normal guy, I'm almost a flash back to when guys were coy and courtious.
In any case let me continue. While I know I'm not the best out there, I also know I'm far better than the best tends to be in the long run, and I realised that putting up with all the shit I initially put up with was not a good thing. I delt with a girl who would use me as a butt of jokes, would rather spend time with her friends than anytime with me alone, and had the audacity to call me a snob when I was going through a really bad time. I am no snob. I may think you are below me but that is because you problibly think you're supperior and are infact an idiot. Every problem in the relationship was mine and mine alone. Some how me being angry about her infidelities was turned around to make me the bad guy, how she did that I'll never know but I give her credit that was sneaky as all fuck.
Now this paints a bad picture of her. Keep in mind that she was going through a horrilbe experience at home and at school. Now she seems to have changed, possibly grew up some. Not saying I'd scoop her up in a second, oh no no scooping with this one. But she is actually turning into the woman I originally knew she'd turn out to be all those years ago. The odd thing is I find no attraction to that person. Yes she left a mark on me, it was an intense mark, I will always remember her good and bad. But I can now see her from a new angle. We are different people. I'm no longer a door mat to be used by what ever pretty face shows some interest in me (this is a fairly new development, some may not have seen this in action yet). I am actually for once in my life feeling good about myself enough to know I'm worth some thing to some one. I guess in a way I took for granted that at one point she did think the world of me, I'd love to have that again, just with some one new. In time this will happen I'm sure of it. I can't be single all my life can I?
Eh, I've gotten a bit apathetic though about fighting for the affections of people I find attractive. If it's going to happen then it will happen, why should I go and try to wedge myself in there? More so why should I try this when I get no real definate signs of any return feelings? This has been the case with several girls over the past four years. Only twice did I screw up and miss out on two potentially great relationships where both girls actually were interested in me. One I'm sort of glad it turned out the way it did as she and I are far better as friends, plus who would we complain to about the idiots who won't date us? The other one I kind of wish I lowered my moral code low enough to have taken a chance with her. But nope, she had a boyfriend and though she wanted to leave him for me I knew how that would have played out. She'd leave her boyfriend of four years date me and eventually the boyfriend would have won her back from me leaving me back into the single world. Eventually the couple would break up on their own and thus ends a possible good thing. But Carl couldn't you two have tried to get back together? Yeah I guess we cold have, but we grew apart, and the constant going back and forth on who she wanted to be with kind of made me question wheather she knew what she actually wanted.
All this talk and it goes no where. I really wanted to talk about candy though. Actually to end on a positive note, I think a change is in the air. Either a new girl is going to pop up or something interesting will unfold with a very old friend, that none of you reading this know (well maybe one... but I doubt it). Meh, we'll see what happens over the next few months. I may be lonely now but it can't last forever.
Tuesday, June 6
Aisle 34 and 3/4
Aisle 34 and 3/4 : The Bargin Music Bin
I'm pretending to pack right now. Actually I've already wrote that. I had a pretty good entry lined up but clicked the wrong spot and lost the whole entry. So let me start all over. Yay.
Basically I was explaining how I was sitting in the dark, sipping a guiness and listening to random songs from my computer. One of the songs happened to be X's "The Unheard Music." I really enjoy X. I'm sure when I was a wee laddie my sister had them playing on her record player, I vaguely remember the songs from way back then. Though sadly I didn't get into X till very recently. I recieved a nice mix cd that had "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes" and fell in love with that song (also helped that the mix was given to me by a lovely woman from Atlanta who I adore to no end).
A little bit later I caught Penelope Spheeris' film Decline of the Western Civilization Part I. Decline Part I was the first instalment of three films (followed by Declines Part II and III). Part II delt with the metal scene of the mid eighties, following bands like Kiss, Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper and Moterhead's Lemmy (yay!). Part I delt with the kids in the L.A. punk movement of 1981, while the third film was more of a follow up on the punk scene in the 1998 and was devistatingly depressing. Supposedly the second film is hillarious, however the first (and possibly the third) are not funny at all, well ok maybe a bit.
For a reference point Spheeris also directed the Roger Corman produced film Suburbia (not to be confused with the great play/ok film SubUrbia of the mid nineties), and the ever loved Wayne's World. However the Declines were straight forward documentaries.
Decline I delt with the punk explosion on the early eighties in L.A. with bands like the Circle Jerks, The Alice Bag Band, Black Flag, Fear, the Germs and X. But the film wasn't just about the bands, actually it delt more with the social aspects of the punk movement. Giving the kids who were cast aside by modern society a voice. We see the shitty apartments and abandoned warehouses the bands and the kids who followed them lived in. Live performances are shown, interviews are given but there is no real feeling of the bands being any better off than their fans. The members of the Germs live in this crappy apartment and the interview is conducted while they make a really small and simple diner. We hear more about things that have shaped their lives than what their music is about. There's a great annecdote given by the sister of the lead singer of the Germs about how she and another person (her brother or possibly his girlfriend) found a dead house painter in their parents back yard that possibly was sitting there for several days.
Out of all the bands interviewed it seemed that X was the best put together and the one that was most concerned with music above anything else. The guitarist (Billy Zoom, who in the concert scenes looks like a throw back to the rockabilly 50s) was very, very short in his answers and came off like a bastard because he didn't seem like he even wanted to be on film, he just wanted to play music. While the lead and bassist John Doe was focusing all his attention on how the band practices and doesn't give a crap about what other punks thought about them. X, when you hear them don't sound like the heavy ear splitting band we've come to expect from punk. Their music is put together very purposely and sounds pretty clean (raw but clean). It's their lyrics that give away their punk attitude. With songs like "Johnny Hit and Run Paulene" which sang of a serial rapist ("l.a. bus doors open kicking both doors open when it rested on 6th street that's when he drug a girl inside he was spreading her legs and didn't understand dying she was still awake") or "Nausea" which sang about, well, having one craptastic hang over ("today you're gonna be so sick so sick you'll prop your forehead on the sink say oh christ oh jesus christ my head's gonna crack like a bank tonight you'll fall asleep in clothes-so late like a candy bar wrapped up for lunch that's all you get to taste poverty and spit poverty").
Their songs delt with the ugly side of life at the time. Most of the bands back then sang about the ugly side of life. Compare that to the nineties and the curent punk and you get a "what the fuck" whip lash. Let's compare shall we?
Dawn of punk:
Sex Pistols- Pretty Vacant: " There's no point in asking you'll get no reply
Oh just remember a don't decide
I got no reason it's too all much
You'll always find me out to lunch
We're out on lunch"
General feeling of apathy and nhilism. There's no future so who give a fuck what happens.
80's punk:
Dead Kennedys- Terminal Preppy: " I want a wife with tits
Who just smiles all the time
In my centerfold world
Filled with Springsteen and wine
Some day I'll have power
Some day I'll have boats
A tract in some suburb
With Thanksgivings to host
[Chorus]
I'm a terminal terminal terminal preppie
terminal terminal terminal preppie
terminal terminal terminal preppie"
The eighties were the age of gimme gimme, and the music here reflected the pretention of the age as well as the fact that uglyness still happened (see Johnny Hit and Run Paulene).
90's punk:
The Offspring- Self Esteem: " We make plans to go out at night
I wait till 2 then I turn out the light
All this rejection's got me so low
If she keeps it up I just might tell her so"
Here we see punk moving from looking at the uglieness of the rest of the world and mainly looking at the uglieness within. Lot's of songs about low self esteem, and love loss.
2000's punk:
Flashlight Brown-Ready to Roll: " We may not know any girls
But we got graph paper guiding our way
We got confusion, delusion
And all of Friday night to kill.
That was by far the best time that we ever had.
That was by far the best time that we ever had.
Get to the tavern have a few beers
dressed up and ready to roll
Pick up an Elvin bar whore
dressed up and ready to roll"
Ok well this isn't all that accurate but I couldn't bring myself to put an emo song up here. So here we have the self esteem issue pressed further. Now we see songs about being a loser and not fitting in. There's no fight left, they just sit and take it. So in the 00's you get songs that either showcase being an uber nerd OR having your heart ripped out by a girl (see every Saves the Day song EVER same with Dashboard and half of the bands out there).
Yes punk has delt with complaining, but we've gone from complaining about society to complaining about ourselves. Why? What caused this shift? It was a gradual switch and in no way is all encompassing as you can still find social minded punk bands out there but the ones who do sing about the ugly side of life look mainly towards the government. Anti-Flag put out a fairly decent album (Terror State) which was filled with political songs, at the turn of the decade Bad Religion put out "New America" and Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys fame is constantly putting out politically oriented rants, as does Henry Rollins. But it's all clean. Clean and well produced. And like I said it mainly concerns itself with the government and not the people of this nation. Yes that's right the people. Ok well Henry Rollins does give a great rant on everything and everyone that pisses him off (parents who can't control their children is a great topic he's ranted on).
What is up with out society now? We have relenquished control to our technology. Just about everyone has a cell phone, about a quarter of our conversations are conducted online (via instant messanger, email and message boards). Our nation has a large sense of apathy towards what's going on. I mean we are in the midst of a war, right? We are in a war and the most common complaint I've seen has been about how annoying those support the troops magnets are on cars. What. The. Fuck. We don't want this war, every one says this. But WHY don't YOU want this war? Do you have an answer? Is it a real one or one you heard John Stewart say? (And let me just say I love John Stewart, he and Colbert are two of the best social satarists of our day) Do I want this war? No, not really, I don't want any war really. I was against our involvement in the middle east way back when I was in elementary school. I saw horrible things happening in the streets of our own country, all the poverty and (at the time) hate crimes that went down. Why help another country when our nation was hurting from the inside? And in helping other countires we ended up fucking things up and setting our own land up for a giant fall (i.e. right now 'n' days).
The political world is something that should constantly be questioned, yeah I agree with that, and kudos to the bands and artists that stand up to the government, in their own ways. However, where is the social commentary? The current view of the human condition. The closest thing the punk world has to dealing with the human condition is in emo music and really great, but obscure bands. Emo comments on how our society is fucking hopeless at connecting with one another. I mean why all this heart ache and despair over a relationship ending that possibly was no longer than three months old? The closest thing in music we have to social commentary can be found in rap. Yeah there's the crappy "Look at me I'm so rich now I'm going to sing about my benz" rap songs but there are also songs from the Dirty South and the East and West sides that deal with relevant issues that effect us imediately. I don't want to make the whole affairs of the world seem like they don't effect us, just what happens in our country effects us much more than the affairs else where. There's still alot of racisim, alot of class strife, and just basic ignorance and intolerance all around.
I'm surprise there isn't a larger presence of gay and lesbian musicians out there telling the world to fuck off and let them screw whoever the hell they want. I mean ok looking at the basic rights of all Americans one of those rights is the right to happieness, and if having sex with some one of the same gender as you makes you happy who's to argue? Oh it's against the bible? Well excuse me, I didn't realize the constitution was part of the bible, I thought it was a sepreate and unrelated document. Silly me.
So to wrap this up. Punk has gone from biting social comentary to self depreciation of the individual in thirty years. Way to go.
The next phase is to just sing songs about nothing at all. Which in a way will fit perfectly into our society.
So apologies to those I inadvertantly offended as my rant kind of veered off the beaten path of where I originally ended. But that happens when you accidentally deleate a post. You get annoyed and complain about everything under the sun.
I'm pretending to pack right now. Actually I've already wrote that. I had a pretty good entry lined up but clicked the wrong spot and lost the whole entry. So let me start all over. Yay.
Basically I was explaining how I was sitting in the dark, sipping a guiness and listening to random songs from my computer. One of the songs happened to be X's "The Unheard Music." I really enjoy X. I'm sure when I was a wee laddie my sister had them playing on her record player, I vaguely remember the songs from way back then. Though sadly I didn't get into X till very recently. I recieved a nice mix cd that had "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes" and fell in love with that song (also helped that the mix was given to me by a lovely woman from Atlanta who I adore to no end).
A little bit later I caught Penelope Spheeris' film Decline of the Western Civilization Part I. Decline Part I was the first instalment of three films (followed by Declines Part II and III). Part II delt with the metal scene of the mid eighties, following bands like Kiss, Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper and Moterhead's Lemmy (yay!). Part I delt with the kids in the L.A. punk movement of 1981, while the third film was more of a follow up on the punk scene in the 1998 and was devistatingly depressing. Supposedly the second film is hillarious, however the first (and possibly the third) are not funny at all, well ok maybe a bit.
For a reference point Spheeris also directed the Roger Corman produced film Suburbia (not to be confused with the great play/ok film SubUrbia of the mid nineties), and the ever loved Wayne's World. However the Declines were straight forward documentaries.
Decline I delt with the punk explosion on the early eighties in L.A. with bands like the Circle Jerks, The Alice Bag Band, Black Flag, Fear, the Germs and X. But the film wasn't just about the bands, actually it delt more with the social aspects of the punk movement. Giving the kids who were cast aside by modern society a voice. We see the shitty apartments and abandoned warehouses the bands and the kids who followed them lived in. Live performances are shown, interviews are given but there is no real feeling of the bands being any better off than their fans. The members of the Germs live in this crappy apartment and the interview is conducted while they make a really small and simple diner. We hear more about things that have shaped their lives than what their music is about. There's a great annecdote given by the sister of the lead singer of the Germs about how she and another person (her brother or possibly his girlfriend) found a dead house painter in their parents back yard that possibly was sitting there for several days.
Out of all the bands interviewed it seemed that X was the best put together and the one that was most concerned with music above anything else. The guitarist (Billy Zoom, who in the concert scenes looks like a throw back to the rockabilly 50s) was very, very short in his answers and came off like a bastard because he didn't seem like he even wanted to be on film, he just wanted to play music. While the lead and bassist John Doe was focusing all his attention on how the band practices and doesn't give a crap about what other punks thought about them. X, when you hear them don't sound like the heavy ear splitting band we've come to expect from punk. Their music is put together very purposely and sounds pretty clean (raw but clean). It's their lyrics that give away their punk attitude. With songs like "Johnny Hit and Run Paulene" which sang of a serial rapist ("l.a. bus doors open kicking both doors open when it rested on 6th street that's when he drug a girl inside he was spreading her legs and didn't understand dying she was still awake") or "Nausea" which sang about, well, having one craptastic hang over ("today you're gonna be so sick so sick you'll prop your forehead on the sink say oh christ oh jesus christ my head's gonna crack like a bank tonight you'll fall asleep in clothes-so late like a candy bar wrapped up for lunch that's all you get to taste poverty and spit poverty").
Their songs delt with the ugly side of life at the time. Most of the bands back then sang about the ugly side of life. Compare that to the nineties and the curent punk and you get a "what the fuck" whip lash. Let's compare shall we?
Dawn of punk:
Sex Pistols- Pretty Vacant: " There's no point in asking you'll get no reply
Oh just remember a don't decide
I got no reason it's too all much
You'll always find me out to lunch
We're out on lunch"
General feeling of apathy and nhilism. There's no future so who give a fuck what happens.
80's punk:
Dead Kennedys- Terminal Preppy: " I want a wife with tits
Who just smiles all the time
In my centerfold world
Filled with Springsteen and wine
Some day I'll have power
Some day I'll have boats
A tract in some suburb
With Thanksgivings to host
[Chorus]
I'm a terminal terminal terminal preppie
terminal terminal terminal preppie
terminal terminal terminal preppie"
The eighties were the age of gimme gimme, and the music here reflected the pretention of the age as well as the fact that uglyness still happened (see Johnny Hit and Run Paulene).
90's punk:
The Offspring- Self Esteem: " We make plans to go out at night
I wait till 2 then I turn out the light
All this rejection's got me so low
If she keeps it up I just might tell her so"
Here we see punk moving from looking at the uglieness of the rest of the world and mainly looking at the uglieness within. Lot's of songs about low self esteem, and love loss.
2000's punk:
Flashlight Brown-Ready to Roll: " We may not know any girls
But we got graph paper guiding our way
We got confusion, delusion
And all of Friday night to kill.
That was by far the best time that we ever had.
That was by far the best time that we ever had.
Get to the tavern have a few beers
dressed up and ready to roll
Pick up an Elvin bar whore
dressed up and ready to roll"
Ok well this isn't all that accurate but I couldn't bring myself to put an emo song up here. So here we have the self esteem issue pressed further. Now we see songs about being a loser and not fitting in. There's no fight left, they just sit and take it. So in the 00's you get songs that either showcase being an uber nerd OR having your heart ripped out by a girl (see every Saves the Day song EVER same with Dashboard and half of the bands out there).
Yes punk has delt with complaining, but we've gone from complaining about society to complaining about ourselves. Why? What caused this shift? It was a gradual switch and in no way is all encompassing as you can still find social minded punk bands out there but the ones who do sing about the ugly side of life look mainly towards the government. Anti-Flag put out a fairly decent album (Terror State) which was filled with political songs, at the turn of the decade Bad Religion put out "New America" and Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys fame is constantly putting out politically oriented rants, as does Henry Rollins. But it's all clean. Clean and well produced. And like I said it mainly concerns itself with the government and not the people of this nation. Yes that's right the people. Ok well Henry Rollins does give a great rant on everything and everyone that pisses him off (parents who can't control their children is a great topic he's ranted on).
What is up with out society now? We have relenquished control to our technology. Just about everyone has a cell phone, about a quarter of our conversations are conducted online (via instant messanger, email and message boards). Our nation has a large sense of apathy towards what's going on. I mean we are in the midst of a war, right? We are in a war and the most common complaint I've seen has been about how annoying those support the troops magnets are on cars. What. The. Fuck. We don't want this war, every one says this. But WHY don't YOU want this war? Do you have an answer? Is it a real one or one you heard John Stewart say? (And let me just say I love John Stewart, he and Colbert are two of the best social satarists of our day) Do I want this war? No, not really, I don't want any war really. I was against our involvement in the middle east way back when I was in elementary school. I saw horrible things happening in the streets of our own country, all the poverty and (at the time) hate crimes that went down. Why help another country when our nation was hurting from the inside? And in helping other countires we ended up fucking things up and setting our own land up for a giant fall (i.e. right now 'n' days).
The political world is something that should constantly be questioned, yeah I agree with that, and kudos to the bands and artists that stand up to the government, in their own ways. However, where is the social commentary? The current view of the human condition. The closest thing the punk world has to dealing with the human condition is in emo music and really great, but obscure bands. Emo comments on how our society is fucking hopeless at connecting with one another. I mean why all this heart ache and despair over a relationship ending that possibly was no longer than three months old? The closest thing in music we have to social commentary can be found in rap. Yeah there's the crappy "Look at me I'm so rich now I'm going to sing about my benz" rap songs but there are also songs from the Dirty South and the East and West sides that deal with relevant issues that effect us imediately. I don't want to make the whole affairs of the world seem like they don't effect us, just what happens in our country effects us much more than the affairs else where. There's still alot of racisim, alot of class strife, and just basic ignorance and intolerance all around.
I'm surprise there isn't a larger presence of gay and lesbian musicians out there telling the world to fuck off and let them screw whoever the hell they want. I mean ok looking at the basic rights of all Americans one of those rights is the right to happieness, and if having sex with some one of the same gender as you makes you happy who's to argue? Oh it's against the bible? Well excuse me, I didn't realize the constitution was part of the bible, I thought it was a sepreate and unrelated document. Silly me.
So to wrap this up. Punk has gone from biting social comentary to self depreciation of the individual in thirty years. Way to go.
The next phase is to just sing songs about nothing at all. Which in a way will fit perfectly into our society.
So apologies to those I inadvertantly offended as my rant kind of veered off the beaten path of where I originally ended. But that happens when you accidentally deleate a post. You get annoyed and complain about everything under the sun.
Thursday, June 1
Aisle 16
Aisle 16: Greating Cards
Well, I was going about the large task of packing my room up for the great move of 2006 and, as is customary, I came across all the letters my uber-ex sent me. Letters, cards, notes, poems, short stories, photos and so forth, all of them. I decided the smart thing would be to go through them all. Read each and every letter and then throw them out. Kind of a great purging of all that I'm leaving behind (i.e. my past). Now these letters spanned from 98' to 2000, which was the initial phase of the realationship (there were many break ups and patch ups between us), so all were written while I was still in high school and she was just starting college.
It's a depressing task, going through all those memories. Each letter further proving that some one once thought the world of me, yet could still be capable of cheating on me... that never added up for me, but bah it's in the past and the past is in the garbage bag in my bedroom. My bedroom, coincidentally enough is not were I'll be sleeping. All the crap I needed to shift through has been placed on my bed, and I don't feel up to pushing it back on the ground in order to move it back onto the bed tomorrow. So it's either couch or floor tonight. I may go for couch.
Young love is an odd beast. It seems to be constantly filled with both parties constantly reminding the other of their love. Futures are planned out in great detail, and time apart is made into such a large scale deal that it could almost kill. Call me a jaded, bitter asshole but I can't see that happening again. At least not as intensly as it once was.
Oh to top it off I found one of the letters where she mentioned us moving away from CT together and having cats and kids. It was at this point that I sort of already proposed (but as I had no ring I gave her a cheap theater wedding band, it was the closest thing to a cracker jack box ring), it's odd thinking that while in high school I was willing to marry some one. The me that is now, was greatly shaped by that relationship, it screwed me the hell up. Most of the screw ups happened after the age of letters ended, so thankfully I already got rid of all the emails that made up that era.
Relationships. I suck at them. I suck starting them and I suck ending them. It's the middle part I'm kind of not sucky at. I keep on wanting a relationship but I have to ask why? Why bother? It seems the only people (with one or two exceptions) I can get interested in me are people I have no interest in dating, and the ones I actually wouldn't mind dating well... stuff comes up and gets in the way, that's life. So my choice is either settle for crap or say fuck it. My answer is fuck both those choices. I like neither of them. So instead I'm going to have to go to the grave yard and dig me up some corpses to make the perfect woman!!! Ok I've watched Bride of Frankenstein one too many times, ya think?
One thing I did notice that in the letters the guy painted (which I guess would be me) was sweet, considerate and passionately romantic. Like hollywood romantic (only not fake). Am I still that? I don't know about the romantic bit but I do know I'm a hell of alot more sarcastic and (oddly) honest now. So that's a plus.
Ugh... I don't feel like finishing this. Let's just leave it at I managed to depress myself a bit and I can't sleep on my bed. Rock on me.
Well, I was going about the large task of packing my room up for the great move of 2006 and, as is customary, I came across all the letters my uber-ex sent me. Letters, cards, notes, poems, short stories, photos and so forth, all of them. I decided the smart thing would be to go through them all. Read each and every letter and then throw them out. Kind of a great purging of all that I'm leaving behind (i.e. my past). Now these letters spanned from 98' to 2000, which was the initial phase of the realationship (there were many break ups and patch ups between us), so all were written while I was still in high school and she was just starting college.
It's a depressing task, going through all those memories. Each letter further proving that some one once thought the world of me, yet could still be capable of cheating on me... that never added up for me, but bah it's in the past and the past is in the garbage bag in my bedroom. My bedroom, coincidentally enough is not were I'll be sleeping. All the crap I needed to shift through has been placed on my bed, and I don't feel up to pushing it back on the ground in order to move it back onto the bed tomorrow. So it's either couch or floor tonight. I may go for couch.
Young love is an odd beast. It seems to be constantly filled with both parties constantly reminding the other of their love. Futures are planned out in great detail, and time apart is made into such a large scale deal that it could almost kill. Call me a jaded, bitter asshole but I can't see that happening again. At least not as intensly as it once was.
Oh to top it off I found one of the letters where she mentioned us moving away from CT together and having cats and kids. It was at this point that I sort of already proposed (but as I had no ring I gave her a cheap theater wedding band, it was the closest thing to a cracker jack box ring), it's odd thinking that while in high school I was willing to marry some one. The me that is now, was greatly shaped by that relationship, it screwed me the hell up. Most of the screw ups happened after the age of letters ended, so thankfully I already got rid of all the emails that made up that era.
Relationships. I suck at them. I suck starting them and I suck ending them. It's the middle part I'm kind of not sucky at. I keep on wanting a relationship but I have to ask why? Why bother? It seems the only people (with one or two exceptions) I can get interested in me are people I have no interest in dating, and the ones I actually wouldn't mind dating well... stuff comes up and gets in the way, that's life. So my choice is either settle for crap or say fuck it. My answer is fuck both those choices. I like neither of them. So instead I'm going to have to go to the grave yard and dig me up some corpses to make the perfect woman!!! Ok I've watched Bride of Frankenstein one too many times, ya think?
One thing I did notice that in the letters the guy painted (which I guess would be me) was sweet, considerate and passionately romantic. Like hollywood romantic (only not fake). Am I still that? I don't know about the romantic bit but I do know I'm a hell of alot more sarcastic and (oddly) honest now. So that's a plus.
Ugh... I don't feel like finishing this. Let's just leave it at I managed to depress myself a bit and I can't sleep on my bed. Rock on me.
Tuesday, May 16
Aisle 11
Aisle 11: Canned Meat
Spam. SPAM!!! Spam. (Please re-read those three words and allow a four second pause between each Spam, also please read aloud, thank you, the management)
So why for I bring up the greatest man made meat by product? Is it international spam day? Is it July? Cause that is when Spam Jam is. Yes there is a festival dealing with spam and it's some time (randomly it seems) in July. So... eat spam.
But honestly, spam. I haven't had to eat spam since I was a wee little laddie. Long, long ago my family ate spam. Most of the time it was fried in a pan with pineapple (the pineapple and the spam are natures lovers) I think at one point there was a spam pizza, I could be imagining this though. I most likely am. If memory serves, spam is very salty, yet unmistakingly meat. I have a can of it back at my apartment... I may have to make something spam-like when I get home. Of course this spam is ancient. I bought it back in 2004 for a play, or rather for an audition for a play. It was a little joke. I asked the actors at the first audition if they'd eat spam, some said yes. So when call backs rolled around I brought in a can of spam to freak out the actors. The spam has since moved to three apartments with me. Serving as a decoration in one and an emergency food supply in the other two. When things hit rock bottom at least I'll know I have spam. This is a thought that has managed to keep me from hitting bottom for the past few years.
So why now? Why do I finally crack open that sacred can of potted meat? Why? Because I have nothing else to loose. I'm leaving CT, I'm supposedly going to a great grad program and I have a cute cat. The spam must be eaten. Maybe not tonight, maybe it will be my final meal in CT I know not. But it will be eaten that you can rest assured.
So... any one feel up to eating some spam? It's tasty!
Spam. SPAM!!! Spam. (Please re-read those three words and allow a four second pause between each Spam, also please read aloud, thank you, the management)
So why for I bring up the greatest man made meat by product? Is it international spam day? Is it July? Cause that is when Spam Jam is. Yes there is a festival dealing with spam and it's some time (randomly it seems) in July. So... eat spam.
But honestly, spam. I haven't had to eat spam since I was a wee little laddie. Long, long ago my family ate spam. Most of the time it was fried in a pan with pineapple (the pineapple and the spam are natures lovers) I think at one point there was a spam pizza, I could be imagining this though. I most likely am. If memory serves, spam is very salty, yet unmistakingly meat. I have a can of it back at my apartment... I may have to make something spam-like when I get home. Of course this spam is ancient. I bought it back in 2004 for a play, or rather for an audition for a play. It was a little joke. I asked the actors at the first audition if they'd eat spam, some said yes. So when call backs rolled around I brought in a can of spam to freak out the actors. The spam has since moved to three apartments with me. Serving as a decoration in one and an emergency food supply in the other two. When things hit rock bottom at least I'll know I have spam. This is a thought that has managed to keep me from hitting bottom for the past few years.
So why now? Why do I finally crack open that sacred can of potted meat? Why? Because I have nothing else to loose. I'm leaving CT, I'm supposedly going to a great grad program and I have a cute cat. The spam must be eaten. Maybe not tonight, maybe it will be my final meal in CT I know not. But it will be eaten that you can rest assured.
So... any one feel up to eating some spam? It's tasty!
Wednesday, May 10
Aisle 22
Aisle 22: Travel Size Toiletries.
So... three weeks till I am homeless. Yep... fun fun fun in the sun sun sun with a shot gun gun. Friday I go down to check out a place in the Bronx (I think I'm meeting with a broker which is so not cool) and later that night I'm heading... some where... to check out a place that needs more roommates. Only thing is I've sent out about ten emails in the past 24 hours about apartments and called several others, so I have absolutely no clue how much this one is or where the hell it is located. I know there are more than two people living there and they are fine with having my psycho cat. So, what's the worse that could happen? They could be canibals. Hmm... If I come back to CT with a large bite taken out of my thigh don't ask me how that happened.
So I'm trying to sort out the apartment thing, I still need to find a job/student loans/financial aid/sugar mama, but other than that I'm pretty fine. If I can keep these balls in the air I'll be happy. Everything else? Fuck it. I just want some place to call bed. I have roughly a half month to find a couple of crappy jobs and once I get my deposite back from this apartment I'll be perfectly fine for a while.
Just need to relax. Things will fall into place. If not then I'll deal with whatever happens. I don't get the apartment or I don't get finacial aid, then I'll just figure something else out. I'll go work either in the City or I'll stay in CT and work at some place that's not a library, or I'll apply for a better library job, one that doesn't suck my soul. In the end it will all work out, just I don't know what I will look like when it's over. Fun times ahead!
So... three weeks till I am homeless. Yep... fun fun fun in the sun sun sun with a shot gun gun. Friday I go down to check out a place in the Bronx (I think I'm meeting with a broker which is so not cool) and later that night I'm heading... some where... to check out a place that needs more roommates. Only thing is I've sent out about ten emails in the past 24 hours about apartments and called several others, so I have absolutely no clue how much this one is or where the hell it is located. I know there are more than two people living there and they are fine with having my psycho cat. So, what's the worse that could happen? They could be canibals. Hmm... If I come back to CT with a large bite taken out of my thigh don't ask me how that happened.
So I'm trying to sort out the apartment thing, I still need to find a job/student loans/financial aid/sugar mama, but other than that I'm pretty fine. If I can keep these balls in the air I'll be happy. Everything else? Fuck it. I just want some place to call bed. I have roughly a half month to find a couple of crappy jobs and once I get my deposite back from this apartment I'll be perfectly fine for a while.
Just need to relax. Things will fall into place. If not then I'll deal with whatever happens. I don't get the apartment or I don't get finacial aid, then I'll just figure something else out. I'll go work either in the City or I'll stay in CT and work at some place that's not a library, or I'll apply for a better library job, one that doesn't suck my soul. In the end it will all work out, just I don't know what I will look like when it's over. Fun times ahead!
Saturday, May 6
Aisle 34 and 3/4
| Aisle 34 and 3/4: The Bargin Music Bin | ||
Well my mp3 player is on the fritz. Go fig. Perfectly timed too, I just managed to put on the new Streets album and then poof. It freazes up now and then, mainly when either Regina Spektor or Portishead pops on. Oh well, I'll send it back see if they can fix it or something.
Music tends to drive my life, more so than any of my other pasions. Sure I love film, I love photography and theater, hell I love ancient Egyptology but music is the link that binds them all. I go out to take some pictures I need to have some music playing in my ears to get my eyes set. Right before doing a play I need a combo of high intensity music and smooth booty jams to get me pumped and chilled. When I work on a paper it is imperative that I have the loudest possible music blasting or else the paper will drag and make little sense.
It ends up being a drug to me, music. I use it to pull myself out of a bad mood, or to intensify the bad mood. Also like just about every drug it has its less savory effects on me. Like I said it can intensify an emotion, so if I feel all love lorn and I happen to make the horrible decision to pop in the Cure's "Blood Flowers" (which by all acounts is a pretty bad album yet is a guilty pleasure to me) I'll be in a puddle of my own tears by the halfway point of the second song. There are also the songs that I associate with certain people that are (for one reason or another) no longer part of my life, now these songs can drag up nostalgia, anger, sadness, spitefull glee, it's really all a crap shoot.
When I had a radio show (basically from 2000 to 2005 in one form or another) I was in utter bliss as for two to three (some times more) hours I could construct a sound scape that could pin point a certain theme or mood. It wasn't just playing a couple songs I enjoyed listening to it was playing one song and linking it to the next song as smooth as possible. Some times the steps made no sense right away but when you listened to the whole show it would make perfect sense. How could I not play Kriss Kross after the Presidents of the United States? It just had to happen.
Currently I've got a rather sad song on by the Streets, called "Never Went to Church." It's off of the latest (It's hard to make an easy living). It's slow, remorseful and about the death of Mike's father. Like I said it's a sad song. However, it doesn't bring up thoughts of my Dad, rather it brings up thoughts of some one else (remaining nameless because why bother?). It's a kind of gental let down song, that while it is sad it has some bright moments to it. In the end Mike's spirits get lifted up a bit and for the most part I think my whole mucky feeling I've been having this past week has slowly disapated. I know there is nothing I can currently do to set things in my favor but such is life. You just have to keep going and find ways to be happy. Ok so as I wrote that another Streets song came on, "Stay Positive" had to skip that track so Fantmos' version of the theme from Night of the Hunter has replaced it, thankfully.
I'm off tonight to see the ever amusing Porto play in New York City. Going with two friends so it should be a gasser. It'll be a long ass night though and a long ass train ride home. Trains not my friend right now. Kind of tired of them, but they are a necesity I guess.
Still soon things will be changing rather quickly, who knows what it will be like next month.
Tuesday, May 2
Aisle 8
Aisle 8: Candy Aisle
Nothing tastes as bitter as losing out on something potentially good and then forcing yourself to be ok about it. It's like reaching for an atomic fireball and grabbing a warhead and trying to readjust to the taste when what you should do is just spit the goddamn thing out of your mouth. I've reached that point in life I think.
I'm sitting here at my night library job wanting to go home. I want to go home and sleep. I know if I was home I wouldn't be able to sleep, I'd probably would put in my roommates copy of the new Tomb Raider and drown Laura Croft for a while (this is fully lifted from one of the best comedy shows that was on tv, Spaced, made by the crew that did Shawn of the Dead, Simon Peg I totally feel you right now mate). I'm at that black stage where you want to be over some one but at the same time you want things to go right back the way they were just a few weeks ago. It's rough. I'm not going to put down here every single detail of the whole evente as well you all really don't need and/or want to know. I did go over the whole thing last night though with some friends. Now when I told one friend (not out with us last night, but rather this was a few days earlier) she was more pissed than I was. She actually yelled at me when I mentioned that I might be able to salvage something. Last night though I wasn't yelled at... too much. Oh I was questioned why I was even upset, but it wasn't in a mean spirited way. Though I never really answered that question, it kind of got sucked up into something else.
Why am I upset? I mean was I in an actual relationship? Not really. It was all very loose and non-commital, but it was nice. It was nice to have some one I liked actually like me back on pretty much equal terms. It's been a long time since that's happened. So what went wrong? How did it all go to pot? I'm not sure really. Just bad luck. I normally would be blaming myself right now, only I know it wasn't me, or if it was than it's good it didn't work out. I decided, at the very start of the whole thing, that I was just going to be myself. I wasn't going to try to be cool or hip. I wasn't inventing any outlandish stories, or hiding any odd quirks that would normally scare people away, in fact I went so far as to TRY to scare the girl. I was currious as to how me I could be around her so I let her have the whole awkwardly weird me, that some of you rarely see from time to time. She didn't seem too put off. Now if she was and was just being polite then well it's obvious it would have never worked as what she was getting was me with the barest minimum of protective masks put on. I think the only thing I kept back was my romantic side, which normally you'd so toss in there, and I was going to eventually, but I didn't want to come off as just another smooth talker. Hence the awkwardness.
So yeah I guess I'm upset about the whole thing because it was the first time I tried being myself and failed. I lost out to another guy. I'm soon to be bumped permanently into the "friend" position that is basically hell for nice guys like me. Some see being a "friend" as pergatory, you might be able to drag yourself out of there and slip into the heaven that is friend with bennefits (like health care only more eyebrow raisingly better). However, if you are a nice guy, "friend" equals hell. Because you want to be nice, you think that by being nice you'll get the girl to change her mind, when in reality she starts to depend on your niceness to the point that she is too afraid to date you because what would happen if you broke up? Nice guy go bye-bye.
There are a plethora of monologues in theater that deal with this topic. There are songs that deal with this as well. Movies deal with this but in a different way. They have the nice guy win (most of the time). Why do they do that?!? I mean it gives us hope that one day the scrawny, intelligent, nice guy is actually going to win the girl from the big lout. I have yet to see this happen in real life. I've tried it many a time. I've butted heads on the romantic field many a time trying to win a girl over. I made mix tapes that would cause people to cream their pants, I set up romantic evenings, I went to great lengths to be there for them when their current or ex boy caused them grief. I made them laugh, I made them blush, I told them great stories and great poetic... thingies, hell I once called this girl up while she was working at a job she cried about and played Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" over the phone for her. She broke down crying, it was the sweetest thing any one's ever done for her, she thought the world of me, but she couldn't go out with me that night as she already had a date with this other guy, who consitantly chose video games over walking her home at midnight, through the dirty streets of Willimantic. Nothing works. I am cursed.
Am I giving up then? No. I know some where out there beneath the cold moon light, some one's thinking of me and missing me... sorry. Fival moment. But seriously some where out there, beneath the cold moon light, there has to be some one who would pick me as a boyfriend. Some one that I would pick as a girlfriend too. Like I would prefer that we both would pick each other, it would be nice. I'm tired of being the second fiddle all the time. I'm also tired of dating people who like to cheat on me. That's never fun. Gah I have horrible luck/choice in women! And for all that I complain about it I refuse to capitulate and act the way most people act in order to get a girl. Meaning I'm not about to act like some fake movie character played by John Cusack, from this point on I'm doing the whole dating thing on my terms. If the person doesn't want to date me it will be because she dosen't like who I am as a person. If this is the case than why would I want to date them? Exactly. Bitterness be gone! I'd do it with this current girl only, well I really dug her, which is the fucking worst part of all this.
I'm pretty sure if I broke out my Cure albums tonight I'd be in a horrid state. Gothieness woudl be right back upon me and with that would follow the bad poetry and with that... I shudder to think. So tonight I'll listen to the Streets, or I'll listen to some Primus, possibly some Gogol Bordello. Note I am also staying away from emo. Why? Because I'm not fucking emo!! I may complain and I may get the mean reds from time to time but I am not a tight shirt wearing, Buddy Holly glasses toting, whiny cry baby, who likes to pretend he's tough by singing about how violently his heart was ripped out of his chest by girl-x. I hate the emos. I tolerate the hipsters as they are really just grown up emos (it's true, look at yourself, you're in your late twenties and you try to pull off the post-teenage college guy look, get an interesting hair cut!).
So what, pray tell am I? Well, I am a bitter, sardonic bastard. Everyone get's depressed from time to time. Everyone has the right to complain about it, that is how you get things off your chest and you feel better. To bottle it all up means to surpress your emotions, and if you do that long enough you will explode on some helpless person behind a cashregister. So I complain. I also find humor in my problems. I mean if my life was a movie it would be hillarious, in a kind of dark sense. Our hero trudges along, finds some good things and then poof good things get taken away and he falls on a banana peal (not slips but falls). Do this to the guy enough and you have a comedy, do it too much (i.e. if this happens one more time) than you have a perfect example of the human condition told only the way the existentialists and absurdists would have it shown.
So what's my plan. What am I going to do next? I am... going to do fuck all actually. I'm not looking for another person, I'm not fighting for the girl, I'm just going to get my shite together move to New York and go to school. If something happens as I'm doing that then fan-fucking-tastic, if not then, well business as usual I guess.
I am pissed, not at the girl's choice (despite the fact that I think it's the wrong choice, then again I'm biased) but at the fact that I let this happen again. I'm so tired of this. I'm half expecting the next girl to follow suit actually (currently there is no next girl but I'm sure eventually one will pop up).
Yeah, like I've said this entire blog, uncensored (to a point, as there are things I really don't feel like telling you all). Sorry if I offended any of the readers. I seriously doubt anyone reading this would get offended, I mean if the girl reads this than I can understand that, if her boyfriend happens to read it over her shoulder than I understand him getting pissed and you know what fuck him, let him get pissed. But if the girl does read this and is upset by anything I've written, it was not my intent. I'll appologise but I will not recant. Note I did not give the girl's name out, though a couple of you know who I'm talkng about as her name must have flown out of my mouth more times than any of us would have liked over the past few months. If, and this is a big if as I know maybe two and a half people read this, you do feel like commenting, let's not invoke her name, she's a good person and I'd hate to tarnish her in the eyes of people who don't know that I'm talking about her. Make sense? No? Well tough titty. Also if you are single (and I stress single to the point of no return) and female (sorry no offence just it's what I dig) and you enjoy this blog and the persona that it paints in your mind (ha!) then hi there, my name is Carl. How you doin'? Want to go out for ice cream and mini-golf?
The End
dun-da-dun-dun.... DUUUUUNNNN!!!!
Nothing tastes as bitter as losing out on something potentially good and then forcing yourself to be ok about it. It's like reaching for an atomic fireball and grabbing a warhead and trying to readjust to the taste when what you should do is just spit the goddamn thing out of your mouth. I've reached that point in life I think.
I'm sitting here at my night library job wanting to go home. I want to go home and sleep. I know if I was home I wouldn't be able to sleep, I'd probably would put in my roommates copy of the new Tomb Raider and drown Laura Croft for a while (this is fully lifted from one of the best comedy shows that was on tv, Spaced, made by the crew that did Shawn of the Dead, Simon Peg I totally feel you right now mate). I'm at that black stage where you want to be over some one but at the same time you want things to go right back the way they were just a few weeks ago. It's rough. I'm not going to put down here every single detail of the whole evente as well you all really don't need and/or want to know. I did go over the whole thing last night though with some friends. Now when I told one friend (not out with us last night, but rather this was a few days earlier) she was more pissed than I was. She actually yelled at me when I mentioned that I might be able to salvage something. Last night though I wasn't yelled at... too much. Oh I was questioned why I was even upset, but it wasn't in a mean spirited way. Though I never really answered that question, it kind of got sucked up into something else.
Why am I upset? I mean was I in an actual relationship? Not really. It was all very loose and non-commital, but it was nice. It was nice to have some one I liked actually like me back on pretty much equal terms. It's been a long time since that's happened. So what went wrong? How did it all go to pot? I'm not sure really. Just bad luck. I normally would be blaming myself right now, only I know it wasn't me, or if it was than it's good it didn't work out. I decided, at the very start of the whole thing, that I was just going to be myself. I wasn't going to try to be cool or hip. I wasn't inventing any outlandish stories, or hiding any odd quirks that would normally scare people away, in fact I went so far as to TRY to scare the girl. I was currious as to how me I could be around her so I let her have the whole awkwardly weird me, that some of you rarely see from time to time. She didn't seem too put off. Now if she was and was just being polite then well it's obvious it would have never worked as what she was getting was me with the barest minimum of protective masks put on. I think the only thing I kept back was my romantic side, which normally you'd so toss in there, and I was going to eventually, but I didn't want to come off as just another smooth talker. Hence the awkwardness.
So yeah I guess I'm upset about the whole thing because it was the first time I tried being myself and failed. I lost out to another guy. I'm soon to be bumped permanently into the "friend" position that is basically hell for nice guys like me. Some see being a "friend" as pergatory, you might be able to drag yourself out of there and slip into the heaven that is friend with bennefits (like health care only more eyebrow raisingly better). However, if you are a nice guy, "friend" equals hell. Because you want to be nice, you think that by being nice you'll get the girl to change her mind, when in reality she starts to depend on your niceness to the point that she is too afraid to date you because what would happen if you broke up? Nice guy go bye-bye.
There are a plethora of monologues in theater that deal with this topic. There are songs that deal with this as well. Movies deal with this but in a different way. They have the nice guy win (most of the time). Why do they do that?!? I mean it gives us hope that one day the scrawny, intelligent, nice guy is actually going to win the girl from the big lout. I have yet to see this happen in real life. I've tried it many a time. I've butted heads on the romantic field many a time trying to win a girl over. I made mix tapes that would cause people to cream their pants, I set up romantic evenings, I went to great lengths to be there for them when their current or ex boy caused them grief. I made them laugh, I made them blush, I told them great stories and great poetic... thingies, hell I once called this girl up while she was working at a job she cried about and played Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" over the phone for her. She broke down crying, it was the sweetest thing any one's ever done for her, she thought the world of me, but she couldn't go out with me that night as she already had a date with this other guy, who consitantly chose video games over walking her home at midnight, through the dirty streets of Willimantic. Nothing works. I am cursed.
Am I giving up then? No. I know some where out there beneath the cold moon light, some one's thinking of me and missing me... sorry. Fival moment. But seriously some where out there, beneath the cold moon light, there has to be some one who would pick me as a boyfriend. Some one that I would pick as a girlfriend too. Like I would prefer that we both would pick each other, it would be nice. I'm tired of being the second fiddle all the time. I'm also tired of dating people who like to cheat on me. That's never fun. Gah I have horrible luck/choice in women! And for all that I complain about it I refuse to capitulate and act the way most people act in order to get a girl. Meaning I'm not about to act like some fake movie character played by John Cusack, from this point on I'm doing the whole dating thing on my terms. If the person doesn't want to date me it will be because she dosen't like who I am as a person. If this is the case than why would I want to date them? Exactly. Bitterness be gone! I'd do it with this current girl only, well I really dug her, which is the fucking worst part of all this.
I'm pretty sure if I broke out my Cure albums tonight I'd be in a horrid state. Gothieness woudl be right back upon me and with that would follow the bad poetry and with that... I shudder to think. So tonight I'll listen to the Streets, or I'll listen to some Primus, possibly some Gogol Bordello. Note I am also staying away from emo. Why? Because I'm not fucking emo!! I may complain and I may get the mean reds from time to time but I am not a tight shirt wearing, Buddy Holly glasses toting, whiny cry baby, who likes to pretend he's tough by singing about how violently his heart was ripped out of his chest by girl-x. I hate the emos. I tolerate the hipsters as they are really just grown up emos (it's true, look at yourself, you're in your late twenties and you try to pull off the post-teenage college guy look, get an interesting hair cut!).
So what, pray tell am I? Well, I am a bitter, sardonic bastard. Everyone get's depressed from time to time. Everyone has the right to complain about it, that is how you get things off your chest and you feel better. To bottle it all up means to surpress your emotions, and if you do that long enough you will explode on some helpless person behind a cashregister. So I complain. I also find humor in my problems. I mean if my life was a movie it would be hillarious, in a kind of dark sense. Our hero trudges along, finds some good things and then poof good things get taken away and he falls on a banana peal (not slips but falls). Do this to the guy enough and you have a comedy, do it too much (i.e. if this happens one more time) than you have a perfect example of the human condition told only the way the existentialists and absurdists would have it shown.
So what's my plan. What am I going to do next? I am... going to do fuck all actually. I'm not looking for another person, I'm not fighting for the girl, I'm just going to get my shite together move to New York and go to school. If something happens as I'm doing that then fan-fucking-tastic, if not then, well business as usual I guess.
I am pissed, not at the girl's choice (despite the fact that I think it's the wrong choice, then again I'm biased) but at the fact that I let this happen again. I'm so tired of this. I'm half expecting the next girl to follow suit actually (currently there is no next girl but I'm sure eventually one will pop up).
Yeah, like I've said this entire blog, uncensored (to a point, as there are things I really don't feel like telling you all). Sorry if I offended any of the readers. I seriously doubt anyone reading this would get offended, I mean if the girl reads this than I can understand that, if her boyfriend happens to read it over her shoulder than I understand him getting pissed and you know what fuck him, let him get pissed. But if the girl does read this and is upset by anything I've written, it was not my intent. I'll appologise but I will not recant. Note I did not give the girl's name out, though a couple of you know who I'm talkng about as her name must have flown out of my mouth more times than any of us would have liked over the past few months. If, and this is a big if as I know maybe two and a half people read this, you do feel like commenting, let's not invoke her name, she's a good person and I'd hate to tarnish her in the eyes of people who don't know that I'm talking about her. Make sense? No? Well tough titty. Also if you are single (and I stress single to the point of no return) and female (sorry no offence just it's what I dig) and you enjoy this blog and the persona that it paints in your mind (ha!) then hi there, my name is Carl. How you doin'? Want to go out for ice cream and mini-golf?
The End
dun-da-dun-dun.... DUUUUUNNNN!!!!
Thursday, April 27
Aisle 27
| Aisle 27: The Best Seller/Stationary aisle | ||
Yep at work again. Let us call this entry the scribblings at the library.
I took a good long look at this blog a day or two ago and I am still trying to figure out the format of it. This should be something I know right off the bat. Just about every blog I've read has a central theme, be it about cats, comic, and music, about the woes of everyday life, about the political ideologies I'd like to push upon you, a chronicle of wonderous and funny stories from my life. Does this have a theme?
Technically it's the idiotic ramblings of a diseased mind. I put very little thought into what goes down on this blog (which should be very apparent). I regret that the second post I wrote for this is a emo post about an ex going to Disney Land. Why did I care? Well maybe it is fitting. I think I've gone over the story of that ex and I on every single blog (possibly not the one where I wrote horrible poetry on purpose). Plus people say you should start with a bang and I hardly ever listen to these people, hence the begining with a dud.
I will say I enjoy writing on this blog far more tha all the others, possibly because I can't tell if anyone is reading this. Other blogs I know exactly who is reading my thoughts so I know right off the bat I can't write about them. Here I can say anything. Like I have no feelings for my ex, Jill, and am slightly happy she is finally moving on with her life and moving to North Carolina. Nice girl but was I such a good boyfriend that she still clings to the past? Another thing I can say is that I really find many of my friends from college to be just as annoying and two faced as the ones from high school. Now before you jump and say, hey wait a sec I'm a friend from college, hold your horses I problibly like you. I mean you are showing an interest in my life. Many of my friends were like, hey we are so going to miss you when you graduate, and I was like, but I'll be in the town down the street, why would you miss me? I'll still be here, hell I'm still working on campus, you can come visit me at work. And without skipping a beat, "Yeah we sure are going to miss you Carl, life won't be the same." It's like talking to a dry sponge, looks interesting but really makes no sense.
So yes I try not to be a whiney jek on this blog, doesn't always work out too well (case in point). I'm not a super bright guy. I'm no great thinker. I'm not a comic genius. I'm a bit of a dork and I'm incredibly awkward and shy (this both hleps and hinders me). So why am I writing this? Is it simply a way for me to expell my thoughts into a quasi-public forum? Is this just like writing on a bathroom stall? I don't think so, as for the most part I don't go on about my deep inner turmoil. Yeah I say I'm stressed and all that but who the hell isn't stressed? I'd like to think of this blog as well just a random collection of thoughts that fill my head. Things I would normally strike up in conversation, only these thoughts pop up when no one is around.
In other words, this blog means fuck all. It's not something to be over analized. It is just an extention of my personality, slightly filtered but less so than when I'm out with certain groups. No one is really themselves all the time, but they tend to shape their persona to match the image those around them hold to be who you are. It's like what Ben Stein was saying in the Mask (oh Christ what am I doing quoting this...) we all wear different masks. Ok so I'm pretty sure that Goffman said it better in one of his books on society but regardless, we all wear multiple masks when we are out in society. To some I'm the mature, level headed responsible guy, while others see me as the bumbling idiot that gushes about a girl liking him, or possibly liking him... it is... a good feeling, I'll leave it at that. No mater the outcome I feel good about that.
What was I babbling on about? Oh right this blog. Read it, don't read it. Comment, don't comment. Hell comment about something that has nothing what-so-ever to do with the current topic at hand. If you get entertaind by what I write then yay! If not... so it goes. Am I still going to write on here? Yeah. Will there be more of these introspections? God I hope not. Will this get me fame or fortune? I think that's a no, and I honestly wouldn't have it any other way.
Yours with jelly beans and gizzled prospectors and gypsies,
Cj
Aisle 9
Aisle 9: Poptarts and Apple Sauce
So like I said on my myspace blog (which is www.myspace.com/hairballofdoom ifin you want to check that out), I am inebriated and am going to explain the randomocity of my life.
You see my life seems to be largely influenced by happenstance. All of my apartments h ave sort of landed in my lap out of no where. I ended up applying to Southern because I wanted to initially follow a girl there, that didn't work out at all, as she didn't transfer. But I met many a good person and because of my choice I am now going to New York.
So here's to randomness! May it always play an important part of my life, and may happieness bloom from it.
I was going to go on about certain people I've randomly met that have bettered my life, or situations that I am currently in and how they were born from randomness, but meh I feel not up to that. So enjoy the fact that I'm random.
The end.
So like I said on my myspace blog (which is www.myspace.com/hairballofdoom ifin you want to check that out), I am inebriated and am going to explain the randomocity of my life.
You see my life seems to be largely influenced by happenstance. All of my apartments h ave sort of landed in my lap out of no where. I ended up applying to Southern because I wanted to initially follow a girl there, that didn't work out at all, as she didn't transfer. But I met many a good person and because of my choice I am now going to New York.
So here's to randomness! May it always play an important part of my life, and may happieness bloom from it.
I was going to go on about certain people I've randomly met that have bettered my life, or situations that I am currently in and how they were born from randomness, but meh I feel not up to that. So enjoy the fact that I'm random.
The end.
Tuesday, April 18
Aisle 14
Aisle 14: Seasonal Aisle.
I do declaire it is a mighty bit stiffling in this here book depository. I do think I've got me a case of tha vapores. Hepiscoti, could you freshen up my mint julip? That's a good man. Oh and Hepiscoti retrieve for me my walkin' cane, them honary chil'n are gettin' a mighty bit too close to the porch for my comfort, I may have to give them a poke.
And this is just a glimpse of me in the future! Actually no. No it's not. My future will be less refined and gentelmanly. It will be more codgedy old man. Still on the porch with a cane ready for a good poke, but with ice tea (with some sort of hootch added to it) and sadly no Hepiscoti.
Oh I'd love to be the kooky old grandpa making puppets for my grand kids, but deep inside I know my true calling is to be a bitter, resentful old man, with a cane used for poking. I figure I'll be a nice guy for the majority of my life but once I retire (from wherever the hell I end up) I'm turning codgy! It'll be my little reward to me for being so nice when I was younger and getting the shaft over and over again. Being nice? Not all it's cracked up to be. But it's not like I'm going to stop being nice... that would be mean and being mean is the exact oposite of being nice.
Though I am jaded and bitter. I've got that going for me. If I harness the power of my sullenocity I might just be able to work up a pretty decent comedy routine, but then I'd have to hate more things with more passion. I'd also would have to stop with the random, "Oh my god this is so neat-o!" statements. Statements like, "Oh my god! I was out walking the streets and this prostitute came up to me and asked if I wanted some company and then we ended up talking for like twenty minutes! It was so neat and I didn't even get an STD!" Yeah being enthusiastic about having a chat with a pro (and not being charged for her time) wouldn't work out all too much if I was going for surly bastard (who is funny). My dreams of being a stand up are crushed!
Oh and to set the record straight the conversation lasted less then twenty minutes, but regardless it was a nice conversation. She said I looked like I had all the world's problems on my back, which I actually did at the time, I was doing Atlas a favor. Basically the conversation went exactly the same way as the conversation I had last Summer with a homeless man. He told me to stop looking at the ground when I walked. I should face life with my chin up and if I fell, well so be it, just get up dust yourself off and keep on going, cause that's life, falling down alot. If you spend all your time watching your step and trying NOT to fall down then you miss out on the scenery that is life. Interesting that some of the best advice I get is from total strangers. Oh and the prostitute incident happened back in the fall of 2002. I went for a long walk after a shitty rehearsal or show, can't remember which. In anycase, all my friends went out for drinks I was pissed at them for being asses and I walked the long walk to Mamouns to get some good food. That might have been about the time I was told by a girl I liked that in her eyes I had no genitalia. Needless to say nothing happened between the two of us.
So it's nice out! I walked in to work tonight and will decline a ride from my boss to walk home. I will walk through the ghettos, the areas people have reported muggins, in other words I'm just walking around non-Yale New Haven. I've always gotten alot of shit from my friends when I tell them I walk around New Haven after dark. Have I gotten mugged yet? Nope. Have there been attempts? Hell yes there have. Will I get mugged tonight? I hope not. Who knows? I don't.
But yes, it's nice out, and I've been in a pretty decent mood recently. There have been reasons. I'd be in a better mood if I knew what I was getting for financial aid and if I had an apartment set in stone, and a job. Once things get set durring the next few weeks I should reach a state of near pure bliss. I'm shooting for those times when I use to act in highschool. The cast from Crimes of the Heart springs to mind like a jack knife. I don't think we ever got any actual direction from the director throughout that whole ordeal. I believe he was primarily working with cast A (the whole thing was double casted as to allow more people to take part in the process). One would believe we were the unpopular cast. We sure as hell didn't get equal treatment, and I believe we wrote out a list of complaints to the director after he yelled at us for some inane reason. I remember walking out of rehearsal that night. Not because of my anger of the situation, though it was shitty, but because my girlfriend at the time (were we actually dating still or was I seeing her on the sly?) was picking me up to go see the Jim Carey, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I bought a cool hat for cheep at the mall, so I guess it was worth it. But it was the working with the cast, having to self direct ourselves that made the whole experience fantastic. I had moments of that in college, mainly on the things I was directing (and in Hypochondriac when I ignored everyone complaining), but for the most part my recent theater attempts have fallen short of fun. Improv class has been making me happy though. I am so stoked for this weeks class, by the way. I'm so going to have fun! I'm not sick! YAY!
Man, I wonder what life would be like if I was funny? If I had excellent timing (which I don't) or if I had a sharp wit (which was once sharp and is now a bit dulled), maybe I'd be unstoppable. I'd most likely would be ten times more annoying though. So let's take joy in the fact that I am not in the least bit funny. Though I have my moments... no, no I don't, sorry that was a big lie. It's like my half nipple... or is it? Do I have half a nipple? Do you know for sure if I don't? Were you paying attention during that strip tease I did on the popcorn stand? Wait... no one who saw that reads this blog... um... I NEVER did a strip tease on a popcorn display case... never... and it was not sexy... and it was not to the tune of a Barry White song that I won't mention... nope... I have no clue what you're talking about... Will I do this again? Not on a popcorn display case that's for damn sure!
Um... does anyone actually read this? I asume no one does. Oh I'm sure some one happens to stumble upon this, but does anyone read this and actually ENJOY reading this? I mean you're basically subjecting yourself to a onesided conversation with me. It's like you lost your voice and I was wired on pixie sticks. That's what this is. How do you cope? No, honestly. How? This is all random and for the most part nonsensical. Thank god it's free, or so you think, as secretly as you read this I'm under your chair sneeking loose change out of your pockets. Muwahahahaha!
I do declaire it is a mighty bit stiffling in this here book depository. I do think I've got me a case of tha vapores. Hepiscoti, could you freshen up my mint julip? That's a good man. Oh and Hepiscoti retrieve for me my walkin' cane, them honary chil'n are gettin' a mighty bit too close to the porch for my comfort, I may have to give them a poke.
And this is just a glimpse of me in the future! Actually no. No it's not. My future will be less refined and gentelmanly. It will be more codgedy old man. Still on the porch with a cane ready for a good poke, but with ice tea (with some sort of hootch added to it) and sadly no Hepiscoti.
Oh I'd love to be the kooky old grandpa making puppets for my grand kids, but deep inside I know my true calling is to be a bitter, resentful old man, with a cane used for poking. I figure I'll be a nice guy for the majority of my life but once I retire (from wherever the hell I end up) I'm turning codgy! It'll be my little reward to me for being so nice when I was younger and getting the shaft over and over again. Being nice? Not all it's cracked up to be. But it's not like I'm going to stop being nice... that would be mean and being mean is the exact oposite of being nice.
Though I am jaded and bitter. I've got that going for me. If I harness the power of my sullenocity I might just be able to work up a pretty decent comedy routine, but then I'd have to hate more things with more passion. I'd also would have to stop with the random, "Oh my god this is so neat-o!" statements. Statements like, "Oh my god! I was out walking the streets and this prostitute came up to me and asked if I wanted some company and then we ended up talking for like twenty minutes! It was so neat and I didn't even get an STD!" Yeah being enthusiastic about having a chat with a pro (and not being charged for her time) wouldn't work out all too much if I was going for surly bastard (who is funny). My dreams of being a stand up are crushed!
Oh and to set the record straight the conversation lasted less then twenty minutes, but regardless it was a nice conversation. She said I looked like I had all the world's problems on my back, which I actually did at the time, I was doing Atlas a favor. Basically the conversation went exactly the same way as the conversation I had last Summer with a homeless man. He told me to stop looking at the ground when I walked. I should face life with my chin up and if I fell, well so be it, just get up dust yourself off and keep on going, cause that's life, falling down alot. If you spend all your time watching your step and trying NOT to fall down then you miss out on the scenery that is life. Interesting that some of the best advice I get is from total strangers. Oh and the prostitute incident happened back in the fall of 2002. I went for a long walk after a shitty rehearsal or show, can't remember which. In anycase, all my friends went out for drinks I was pissed at them for being asses and I walked the long walk to Mamouns to get some good food. That might have been about the time I was told by a girl I liked that in her eyes I had no genitalia. Needless to say nothing happened between the two of us.
So it's nice out! I walked in to work tonight and will decline a ride from my boss to walk home. I will walk through the ghettos, the areas people have reported muggins, in other words I'm just walking around non-Yale New Haven. I've always gotten alot of shit from my friends when I tell them I walk around New Haven after dark. Have I gotten mugged yet? Nope. Have there been attempts? Hell yes there have. Will I get mugged tonight? I hope not. Who knows? I don't.
But yes, it's nice out, and I've been in a pretty decent mood recently. There have been reasons. I'd be in a better mood if I knew what I was getting for financial aid and if I had an apartment set in stone, and a job. Once things get set durring the next few weeks I should reach a state of near pure bliss. I'm shooting for those times when I use to act in highschool. The cast from Crimes of the Heart springs to mind like a jack knife. I don't think we ever got any actual direction from the director throughout that whole ordeal. I believe he was primarily working with cast A (the whole thing was double casted as to allow more people to take part in the process). One would believe we were the unpopular cast. We sure as hell didn't get equal treatment, and I believe we wrote out a list of complaints to the director after he yelled at us for some inane reason. I remember walking out of rehearsal that night. Not because of my anger of the situation, though it was shitty, but because my girlfriend at the time (were we actually dating still or was I seeing her on the sly?) was picking me up to go see the Jim Carey, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I bought a cool hat for cheep at the mall, so I guess it was worth it. But it was the working with the cast, having to self direct ourselves that made the whole experience fantastic. I had moments of that in college, mainly on the things I was directing (and in Hypochondriac when I ignored everyone complaining), but for the most part my recent theater attempts have fallen short of fun. Improv class has been making me happy though. I am so stoked for this weeks class, by the way. I'm so going to have fun! I'm not sick! YAY!
Man, I wonder what life would be like if I was funny? If I had excellent timing (which I don't) or if I had a sharp wit (which was once sharp and is now a bit dulled), maybe I'd be unstoppable. I'd most likely would be ten times more annoying though. So let's take joy in the fact that I am not in the least bit funny. Though I have my moments... no, no I don't, sorry that was a big lie. It's like my half nipple... or is it? Do I have half a nipple? Do you know for sure if I don't? Were you paying attention during that strip tease I did on the popcorn stand? Wait... no one who saw that reads this blog... um... I NEVER did a strip tease on a popcorn display case... never... and it was not sexy... and it was not to the tune of a Barry White song that I won't mention... nope... I have no clue what you're talking about... Will I do this again? Not on a popcorn display case that's for damn sure!
Um... does anyone actually read this? I asume no one does. Oh I'm sure some one happens to stumble upon this, but does anyone read this and actually ENJOY reading this? I mean you're basically subjecting yourself to a onesided conversation with me. It's like you lost your voice and I was wired on pixie sticks. That's what this is. How do you cope? No, honestly. How? This is all random and for the most part nonsensical. Thank god it's free, or so you think, as secretly as you read this I'm under your chair sneeking loose change out of your pockets. Muwahahahaha!
Monday, April 17
Aisle 27
Aisle 27: The Best Seller/Stationary aisle
Shhhh... I'm suppose to be doing actual work right now... but I figure what the hay? I'm going to jot down random notes on this here blog as I work throughout the day. Why? Because it keeps me awake.
11:04 am... books. Books upon books. They will never end...
I've decided that if I ever work in a library again I want to work in either public service or in a children's library. Why? Because technical services is a bit dull. Data entry is just as exciting as I hoped it would be. As exciting as slowly getting into a pool, one foot after the other, inch by inch, minute by minute, freckle by freckle.
Out of curiosity Carl... whatever happened to that slasher film you were going to make and set on Southern's campus? Oh right, you are a lazy ass! I totally forgot about that, you know being to lazy to commit this information to memory, as I am Carl.
I need to figure out what combination and what amounts bring out my various fake accents while drinking. I know vodka brings out a Scotish, Irish hybrid very easily, one need only make one Scotish/Irish reference and I'll be done, and that person will have to put up with me and my piss poor accent for the rest of the night. My eastern european accent is harder to place. I think if some how gypsies get brought up in conversation that might be the key, that or if some one says something silly and sets me up for a "In my old country" diatribe.
There was something I was going to type... it was genius. I know that. But what was it?
In two seconds I am going to draw evil eyebrows on the cute lamb that's on my calendar, this will cause me to smile for the rest of the day every time I look upon the evil lamb. Hmmm... I might go out for sheese kabob tonight.
Teehee... evil eyebrows have expanded to horns, goatee, curly mustach, vampire teeth, and the lamb is saying "Moo!" He is one bad mofo lamb. Lambchop got nothin' on my spring lamb!
I wonder what would have happened if I stayed at the factory? I actually think life wouldn't be all that different. Perhaps I'd have a car/scooter, but meh, who needs modes of transportation? Not me.
I just decided that I need a mp3 player and shall soon have one whisked to my apartment. This means I now need to clean out my cd collection. I smell a project for tonight! A blue iRiver H10 20 gigs for $140. I think that's a good haul for one day.
Time is almost up. The day is almost over. My rain coat is almost inflated.
Ding!
4:59 pm
And those be some of the thoughts in me head while working. There were others, like, what the hell is this about? And singing some lyrics in my head. For example as I type I have Skinnerbox NYC's Does He Love You? stuck in my head. Which always reminds me of the song Olive Oil sings about Brutus in the Popeye Movie. Great movie that.
Shhhh... I'm suppose to be doing actual work right now... but I figure what the hay? I'm going to jot down random notes on this here blog as I work throughout the day. Why? Because it keeps me awake.
11:04 am... books. Books upon books. They will never end...
I've decided that if I ever work in a library again I want to work in either public service or in a children's library. Why? Because technical services is a bit dull. Data entry is just as exciting as I hoped it would be. As exciting as slowly getting into a pool, one foot after the other, inch by inch, minute by minute, freckle by freckle.
Out of curiosity Carl... whatever happened to that slasher film you were going to make and set on Southern's campus? Oh right, you are a lazy ass! I totally forgot about that, you know being to lazy to commit this information to memory, as I am Carl.
I need to figure out what combination and what amounts bring out my various fake accents while drinking. I know vodka brings out a Scotish, Irish hybrid very easily, one need only make one Scotish/Irish reference and I'll be done, and that person will have to put up with me and my piss poor accent for the rest of the night. My eastern european accent is harder to place. I think if some how gypsies get brought up in conversation that might be the key, that or if some one says something silly and sets me up for a "In my old country" diatribe.
There was something I was going to type... it was genius. I know that. But what was it?
In two seconds I am going to draw evil eyebrows on the cute lamb that's on my calendar, this will cause me to smile for the rest of the day every time I look upon the evil lamb. Hmmm... I might go out for sheese kabob tonight.
Teehee... evil eyebrows have expanded to horns, goatee, curly mustach, vampire teeth, and the lamb is saying "Moo!" He is one bad mofo lamb. Lambchop got nothin' on my spring lamb!
I wonder what would have happened if I stayed at the factory? I actually think life wouldn't be all that different. Perhaps I'd have a car/scooter, but meh, who needs modes of transportation? Not me.
I just decided that I need a mp3 player and shall soon have one whisked to my apartment. This means I now need to clean out my cd collection. I smell a project for tonight! A blue iRiver H10 20 gigs for $140. I think that's a good haul for one day.
Time is almost up. The day is almost over. My rain coat is almost inflated.
Ding!
4:59 pm
And those be some of the thoughts in me head while working. There were others, like, what the hell is this about? And singing some lyrics in my head. For example as I type I have Skinnerbox NYC's Does He Love You? stuck in my head. Which always reminds me of the song Olive Oil sings about Brutus in the Popeye Movie. Great movie that.
Monday, April 10
Aisle 22
Aisle 22: Travel Size Toiletries.
Ugh... every single decent/cheep apartment I look at that has a roommate is barred from me because it's some one looking for a female roommate. Was it so odd that two of my first apartment type roommates were girls? Does this not happen in normal society? Was I just living with two freaks? Well I was, but still! I want an apartment gosh darnit!
I've subcumbed to my back up plan. I didn't want to pull it, but it's either room with multiple cats and with a person who my friends don't mesh with, or beg to sleep on people's couches for the next year or so.
I wouldn't be worried if I knew how much I'd be making in New York. If I knew what my financial aid refund was going to be, or what my job (which I still have to find) was going to pay me then I'd be fine to jump onto what ever apartment I can find.
From the looks of it I need to make at the very least what I'm making now split between work and financial aid crap. If I can some how pull that off I could technically manage getting a relatively cheep one bedroom or studio apartment for like 8 or 9 a month, but I just don't know. And spliting a two bedroom apartment between three people would be cheeper. Which would mean I'd be able to go out and actually see the few friends I have up there.
I hate not having money. I hate having to be concerned with money. I look at all my literary role models. They wrote, and managed to get by. They could afford a crappy apartment on whatever play or essay they published at the time. They didn't have to go out and wash dishes, or stare at the spines of books for hours upon hours. Ok well Kafka did work as a clerk, and that warped his mind wonderfully. But Becket? Ionesco? They wrote. Burroughs was an exterminator (or so I am lead to believe) also a drug dealer. I think the drug dealing brought more money in for him. What did O'Neille do? Oh yeah he worked on a boat, stoking the engines.
How do the other grad students do it? Are they all from rich back grounds? Do they all have trust funds? I have a friend who's parents are paying her rent up until she graduates. Why can't I get that? Oh... right... poor family. I often wonder how my sister managed to go smoothly through grad school in Indiana. Of course I'm sure Indiana was alot less expensive than New York is.
I'm spending all my time worrying about this, so yay for all the other things that have been locked up in my mind disapating! Yay!! And a couple of my friends are busting their asses to help me get situated in New York, which is very cool. Sergio and Kim are helping me search down roommates, a few new friends have offered me a couch to rest my head on, and Stacey is going to professionalize my resume above and beyond what I would normally attempt.
So goals for this week before I leave for my Mom's on Friday:
Call up NYU and find out what the hell is up with my financial aid.
Do the same with the Fafsa folk.
Put in emails for at least three apartments with people advertizing a need for roommates.
Call up NYU and ask about possible job opportunities.
Check the libraries, the theater, any where.
Email RRP and see if there is anyway I can offer my tech services to him.
Email Bill and ask for any advice he can give me.
Try to plan for a trip down to the city to court a cute kitten.
Put together an Easter package for me mum, and get me pa some candy I guess.
Figure out the whys and the reasons behind them.
Have a stiff drink.
Eat a cookie.
Finish reading that Ionesco book, or else I'll never do it.
And hmm... I don't know... clean myself up a bit? Climb everest? Eat a live siberian elephant who sings camptown races.
::Shakes fist::
...................end of line...............
Ugh... every single decent/cheep apartment I look at that has a roommate is barred from me because it's some one looking for a female roommate. Was it so odd that two of my first apartment type roommates were girls? Does this not happen in normal society? Was I just living with two freaks? Well I was, but still! I want an apartment gosh darnit!
I've subcumbed to my back up plan. I didn't want to pull it, but it's either room with multiple cats and with a person who my friends don't mesh with, or beg to sleep on people's couches for the next year or so.
I wouldn't be worried if I knew how much I'd be making in New York. If I knew what my financial aid refund was going to be, or what my job (which I still have to find) was going to pay me then I'd be fine to jump onto what ever apartment I can find.
From the looks of it I need to make at the very least what I'm making now split between work and financial aid crap. If I can some how pull that off I could technically manage getting a relatively cheep one bedroom or studio apartment for like 8 or 9 a month, but I just don't know. And spliting a two bedroom apartment between three people would be cheeper. Which would mean I'd be able to go out and actually see the few friends I have up there.
I hate not having money. I hate having to be concerned with money. I look at all my literary role models. They wrote, and managed to get by. They could afford a crappy apartment on whatever play or essay they published at the time. They didn't have to go out and wash dishes, or stare at the spines of books for hours upon hours. Ok well Kafka did work as a clerk, and that warped his mind wonderfully. But Becket? Ionesco? They wrote. Burroughs was an exterminator (or so I am lead to believe) also a drug dealer. I think the drug dealing brought more money in for him. What did O'Neille do? Oh yeah he worked on a boat, stoking the engines.
How do the other grad students do it? Are they all from rich back grounds? Do they all have trust funds? I have a friend who's parents are paying her rent up until she graduates. Why can't I get that? Oh... right... poor family. I often wonder how my sister managed to go smoothly through grad school in Indiana. Of course I'm sure Indiana was alot less expensive than New York is.
I'm spending all my time worrying about this, so yay for all the other things that have been locked up in my mind disapating! Yay!! And a couple of my friends are busting their asses to help me get situated in New York, which is very cool. Sergio and Kim are helping me search down roommates, a few new friends have offered me a couch to rest my head on, and Stacey is going to professionalize my resume above and beyond what I would normally attempt.
So goals for this week before I leave for my Mom's on Friday:
Call up NYU and find out what the hell is up with my financial aid.
Do the same with the Fafsa folk.
Put in emails for at least three apartments with people advertizing a need for roommates.
Call up NYU and ask about possible job opportunities.
Check the libraries, the theater, any where.
Email RRP and see if there is anyway I can offer my tech services to him.
Email Bill and ask for any advice he can give me.
Try to plan for a trip down to the city to court a cute kitten.
Put together an Easter package for me mum, and get me pa some candy I guess.
Figure out the whys and the reasons behind them.
Have a stiff drink.
Eat a cookie.
Finish reading that Ionesco book, or else I'll never do it.
And hmm... I don't know... clean myself up a bit? Climb everest? Eat a live siberian elephant who sings camptown races.
::Shakes fist::
...................end of line...............
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